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Articles

Regulation of Glucose Metabolism and Cell Wall Synthesis in Avena Stem Segments by Gibberellic Acid ¹

Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Division of Biological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

Gibberellic acid (GA) stimulated both the elongation of Avena sativa stem segments and increased synthesis of cell wall material. The effects of GA on glucose metabolism, as related to cell wall synthesis, have been investigated in order to find specific events regulated by GA. GA caused a decline in the levels of glucose, glucose 6-phosphate, and fructose 6-phosphate if exogenous sugar was not supplied to the segments, whereas the hormone caused no change in the levels of glucose 6-phosphate, fructose 6-phosphate, UDP-glucose, or the adenylate energy charge if the segments were incubated in 0.1 M glucose. No GA-induced change could be demonstrated in the activities of hexokinase, phosphoglucomutase, UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase, or polysaccharide synthetases using UDP-glucose, UDP-galactose, UDP-xylose, and UDP-arabinose as substrates. GA stimulated the activity of GDP-glucose-dependent -glucan synthetase by 2- to 4-fold over the control. When glucan synthetase was assayed using UDP-glucose as substrate, only -1,3-linked glucan was synthesized in vitro, whereas with GDP-glucose, only -1,4-linked glucan was synthesized. These results suggest that one part of the mechanism by which GA stimulates cell wall synthesis concurrently with elongation in Avena stem segments may be through a stimulation of cell wall polysaccharide synthetase activity.

¹ Supported by a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and by a Horace H. Rackham Graduate Fellowship to M. J. M. Supported also by a University of Michigan Phoenix Project Grant to H. I. Material from a dissertation submitted by M. J. M. in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. at The University of Michigan.