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Membranes and Bioenergetics

Analysis of the Reaction Products from Incubation of Sugarcane Vacuoles with Uridine-Diphosphate-Glucose: No Evidence for the Group Translocator

Pflanzenphysiologie, Universität Bayreuth, D-8580 Bayreuth, West Germany

Isolated sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrid H50-7209) vacuoles incorporate radioactivity during incubation with labeled UDP-glucose by a mechanism which was postulated to be responsible for sucrose storage in the vacuoles (UDP-glucose group translocator). Analysis of the reaction products in the medium revealed that several enzymic processes are going on during incubation with UDP-glucose such as production of hexose phosphates, UMP, and sugars, all of which seem unrelated to the incorporation of radioactivity into vacuoles. The incorporated radioactivity was identified mainly as (13)--glucan (callose) of polymerization grades up to more than 20. Callose occurs as a contaminant at the surface of isolated vacuoles coming from the plasmalemma. The properties of UDP-glucose incorporation into the vacuolar preparation compared favorably with known properties of callose synthase. The low mol wt glucans that are found are probably degradation products of labeled callose due to hydrolases, which are liberated by centrifugation of vacuoles. The labeled disaccharide, which chromatographically had been formerly identified as sucrose, is laminaribiose. No sucrose (or sucrose phosphate) could be identified in the vacuole preparation after incubation with UDP-glucose. Thus, the mechanism of sucrose storage in sugarcane vacuoles is still open.