HPLC-MS/MS analyses show that leaves of the near-starchless aps1 and pgm mutants accumulate wild type levels of ADPglucose: further evidence for the occurrence of various important ADPglucose biosynthetic pathway(s)

Póster presrentado en el XXXVII Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SEBBM), celbrado en Granada del 9 al 12 de septiembre de 2014.In leaves, it is widely assumed that starch is the end-product of a metabolic pathway exclusively taking place in the chloroplast that (a) involves plastidic phosphoglucomutase (pPGM), ADPglucose (ADPG) pyrophosphorylase (AGP) and starch synthase (SS), and (b) is linked to the Calvin-Benson cycle by means of the plastidic phosphoglucose isomerase (pPGI). This view also implies that AGP is the sole enzyme producing the starch precursor molecule, ADPG. However, mounting evidence has been compiled pointing to the occurrence of important sources, other than the pPGI-pPGM-AGP pathway, of ADPG. To further explore this possibility, in this work two independent laboratories have carried out HPLC-MS/ MS analyses of ADPG content in leaves of the near-starchless pgm and aps1 mutants impaired in pPGM and AGP, respectively, grown under two different culture conditions. We also measured the ADPG content in WT and aps1 leaves expressing in the plastid two different ADPG cleaving enzymes, and in aps1 leaves expressing in the plastid GlgC, a bacterial AGP. Furthermore, we measured the ADPG content in ss3/ss4/aps1 mutants impaired in starch granule initiation and chloroplastic ADPG synthesis. We found that, irrespective of their starch contents, pgm and aps1 leaves, WT and aps1 leaves expressing in the plastid ADPG cleaving enzymes, and aps1 leaves expressing in the plastid GlgC accumulate WT ADPG content (0.13-0.19 nmol ADPG/g fresh weight). In clear contrast, ss3/ss4/aps1 leaves accumulated ca. 300 fold-more ADPG than WT leaves. The overall data further provide strong evidence that, in Arabidopsis leaves, (a) there are important ADPG biosynthetic pathways, other than the pPGI-pPGM-AGP pathway, (b) pPGM and AGP are major determinants of starch accumulation, but not of intracellular ADPG content, and (c) most of ADPG has an extraplastidial localization in WT leaves.N