Impaired sucrose-induction mutants reveal the modulation of sugar-induced starch biosynthetic gene expression by abscisic acid signalling

Plants both produce and utilize carbohydrates and have developed mechanisms to regulate their sugar status and co-ordinate carbohydrate partitioning. High sugar levels result in a feedback inhibition of photosynthesis and an induction of storage processes. We used a genetic approach to isolate compo nents of the signalling pathway regulating the induction of starch biosynth esis. The regulatory sequences of the sugar inducible ADP-glucose pyrophosp horylase subunit ApL3 were fused to a negative selection marker. Of the fou r impaired sucrose induction (isi) mutants described here, two (isi1 and is i2) were specific to this screen. The other two mutants (isi3 and isi4) sho wed additional phenotypes associated with sugar-sensing screens that select for seedling establishment on high-sugar media. The isi3 and isi4 mutants were found to be involved in the abscisic acid signalling pathway, isi3 is allelic to abscisic acid insensitive4 (abi4), a gene encoding an Apetala2-t ype transcription factor; isi4 was found to be allelic to glucose insensiti ve1 (gin1) previously reported to reveal cross-talk between ethylene and gl ucose signalling. Here we present an alternative interpretation of gin1 as an allele of the ABA-deficient mutant aba2. Expression analysis showed that ABA is unable to induce ApL3 gene expression by itself, but greatly enhanc es ApL3 induction by sugar. Our data suggest a major role for ABA in relati on to sugar-signalling pathways, in that it enhances the ability of tissues to respond to subsequent sugar signals.