title: Starch as a major integrator in the regulation of plant growth.
abstract: Rising demand for food and bioenergy makes it imperative to breed for increased crop yield. Vegetative plant growth could be driven by resource acquisition or developmental programs. Metabolite profiling in 94 Arabidopsis accessions revealed that biomass correlates negatively with many metabolites, especially starch. Starch accumulates in the light and is degraded at night to provide a sustained supply of carbon for growth. Multivariate analysis revealed that starch is an integrator of the overall metabolic response. We hypothesized that this reflects variation in a regulatory network that balances growth with the carbon supply. Transcript profiling in 21 accessions revealed coordinated changes of transcripts of more than 70 carbon-regulated genes and identified 2 genes (myo-inositol-1-phosphate synthase, a Kelch-domain protein) whose transcripts correlate with biomass. The impact of allelic variation at these 2 loci was shown by association mapping, identifying them as candidate lead genes with the potential to increase biomass production.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Am Muehlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
authors.forename: Ronan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sulpice
authors.forename: Eva-Theresa
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Pyl
authors.forename: Hirofumi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ishihara
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Trenkamp
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Steinfath
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Witucka-Wall
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gibon
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Usadel
authors.forename: Fabien
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Poree
authors.forename: Maria Conceição
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Piques
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Von Korff
authors.forename: Marie Caroline
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Steinhauser
authors.forename: Joost J B
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Keurentjes
authors.forename: Manuela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guenther
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hoehne
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Selbig
authors.forename: Alisdair R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Fernie
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Altmann
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stitt
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism / Q000235:genetics; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000235:genetics*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D013213:Starch / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D013213:Starch