Abstract
Starch is an important reserve of sugar, and starch-sugar conversion in plants plays an important role in the response of plants to various abiotic stresses. Nicosulfuron is a post-emergence herbicide commonly applied to maize fields. However, it is unclear how sucrose and starch in sweet corn are converted to accommodate nicosulfuron stress. Field and pot experiments were conducted to study the effects of nicosulfuron on the sugar metabolism enzymes, starch metabolism enzymes, non-enzyme substances, and expression of key enzyme genes in leaves and roots of sweet maize seedlings. Accordingly, this research compared the responses of the sister lines HK301 and HK320, which are nicosulfuron tolerant and sensitive, respectively. Under nicosulfuron stress, compared with HK301 seedlings, the accumulation of stem and root dry matter of HK320 seedlings was significantly reduced, resulting in a lower root-to-shoot ratio. Compared with HK320 seedlings, nicosulfuron stress significantly increased the sucrose, soluble sugar, and starch contents in HK301 leaves and roots. This may be related to the enhanced carbohydrate metabolism under nicosulfuron stress, including significant changes in sugar metabolism enzyme activity and the levels of SPS and SuSys expression. Further, under nicosulfuron stress, sucrose transporter genes (SUC 1, SUC 2, SWEET 13a, and SWEET 13b) in the leaves and roots of HK301 seedlings were significantly upregulated. Our results emphasize that changes in sugar distribution, metabolism, and transport can improve the adaptability of sweet maize to nicosulfuron stress.
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Funding
This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province of China (C2022407026 and C2019407095), Key Research and Development Plan of Hebei Province (22326501D), Doctoral Initiation Fund of Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology (2022YB011).
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Jian Wang: investigation, methodology, data curation, funding acquisition, writing—original draft. Qing Yang: data curation, formal analysis. Jinling Han: conceptualization, validation, writing—review and editing. Zidian He: conceptualization, investigation, funding acquisition. Min Yang: writing—review and editing. Xiuping Wang: investigation, methodology, writing—review and editing. Xiaohu Lin: conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing, supervision. All the authors agree that the description of the individual contributions presented above is accurate and appropriate.
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Wang, J., Yang, Q., Han, J. et al. Effect of nicosulfuron on dynamic changes in the starch-sugar interconversion in sweet maize (Zea mays L.). Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 59606–59620 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26766-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26766-z