Chilling Nights Do Not Cause Starch Over-Accumulation and Trigger a Shift in Carbon Partitioning via SPS Toward Sucrose in Arabidopsis - Differing from Acclimation to Permanent Cold
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Abstract
Summary Plants acclimate to low temperatures by remodeling carbohydrate metabolism. Permanent cold at 4/5 ◦ C induces well-characterized cold acclimation in plants, including accumulation of starch and soluble sugars. In natural environments, however, annual plants in their vegetative phase more frequently experience chilling nights (0–6 ◦ C nights followed by days at least 12 ◦ C warmer), whose metabolic consequences remain poorly understood. We investigated Col-0 Arabidopsis thaliana exposed to one or seven chilling nights and quantified central carbohydrate metabolites, starch, photosynthetic parameters, and maximal activities of enzymes linking sucrose synthesis and cleavage. We integrated these time-series data into a biologically constrained augmented neural ordinary differential equation (ANODE) model to infer diurnal reaction-rate dynamics. Chilling nights induced strong accumulation of sucrose, glucose, and fructose, particularly after seven nights. Both measured sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) capacity and ANODE-predicted SPS rates increased. In contrast to permanent cold acclimation, daytime starch over-accumulation was absent. Thus, lacking starch over-accumulation together with increased SPS rates, chilling nights invoke distinct carbohydrate-partitioning patterns towards sucrose, indicating a fundamentally different acclimation strategy compared to well described permanent cold.
Authors 8
-
Affiliation as printed
Plant Molecular Systems Biology, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
-
Affiliation as printed
Plant Molecular Systems Biology, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
-
Affiliation as printed
Plant Molecular Systems Biology, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
-
Affiliation as printed
Plant Molecular Systems Biology, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
-
Affiliation as printed
Computational Life Science, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
-
Affiliation as printed
Molecular Ecology of the Rhizosphere, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
-
Anna Matuszyńska Aachen Center for Computational Life Sciences Computational Life Science Department of Biology
Affiliation as printed
Center for Computational Life Sciences, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Computational Life Science, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
-
Lisa Fürtauer Aachen Center for Computational Life Sciences Plant Molecular Systems Biology Department of Biology
Affiliation as printed
Center for Computational Life Sciences, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Plant Molecular Systems Biology, Department of Biology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074, Germany
Cited by 0 stored of 0
No patents citing this paper on Lens.org (checked 2026-10-06).