A new study published in the Proceedings¹ of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, overturns a long-held theory in plant science. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory who are co-authors on this paper conducted critical radiotracer studies that support the new theory that plant sugars play a dominant³ role in regulating branching at plant stems. While branching has relevance⁴ in agriculture, it is also very important in bioenergy crop production. Brookhaven plant biologist Benjamin Babst and Brittany Wienclaw, who was a summer intern⁵ as part of the DOE Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship⁶ program at Brookhaven while working on her degree at the University of New Haven², conducted an essential experiment to verify that sugars play a key role in apical dominance and the regulation of plant bud growth. The aim of their part of this study was to test if sugars produced in leaves via photosynthesis⁷ move downward through plants in greater quantities when shoot tips are removed, and quickly enough to trigger bud growth farther down.

 

To trace the sugars, the scientists first had to add a radioactive "tag" to these molecules⁹. The tag they used was a positron（正电子）-emitting isotope¹⁰ of carbon, carbon-11, incorporated into carbon dioxide. When they administered this labeled CO2 to plant leaves, the plants incorporated the radioactive carbon into sugars via photosynthesis（光合作用）. The scientists then tracked the labeled sugars throughout the plant using detectors¹¹ placed along the plant stem.

 

The time taken for the 11C-labeled sugars to move between two detectors on upper and lower regions of the stem was used to calculate sugar transport speeds. The scientists also monitored how much sugar accumulated at different positions, including where previously¹² dormant¹³ buds began to sprout¹⁴（芽） in response to clipping the plants' apical shoots.

 

"We found that upon decapitation（解雇） of the plant, there is a rapid increase in sugar delivery to the buds, which promotes bud outgrowth," Babst said. The sugars move about 100 times faster than auxin（植物生长素）, a plant hormone¹⁵ previously believed to regulate bud growth. This finding supports the idea that sugar -- not auxin -- is the key signaling molecule⁸ for this immediate¹⁶ response to clipping.

 

"Auxin plays a secondary role later in the process," Babst said.

 

The Brookhaven experiment further supports the idea that the demand for sugar in intact（完整的）, actively¹⁷ growing apical shoots limits the availability of this nutrient¹⁸ to the rest of the plant, thus normally keeping lower branch bud growth in check.

 

"Only a few labs in the world have the capability¹⁹, using the carbon-11 radioisotope, to do the type of experiment that we did to see rapid changes in carbon allocation immediately following a treatment, such as shoot tip removal," Babst said.

 

"Ben's work was critical for this study," said Christine Beveridge of the University of Queensland, Australia, who was the lead author on the paper. "His finding that sugars move at 150 cm per hour along the stem is amazing. The technique available in his lab is truly first class and an invaluable²⁰ resource for plant scientists worldwide."

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