Sugar-Sensing in Plants: Coordinating Sugar Production and Utilization with Plant Physiology and Development

Dear Colleagues,

Sugars are the primary products of photosynthesis, and their production and utilization are dependent on the absorption and translocation of water and minerals by specialized tissues. Hence, plant growth and survival require proper partitioning of sugars among the many plant parts, as well as the maintenance of sufficient reserves to cope with anticipated diurnal changes and unexpected environmental changes.

It took some time to uncover that sugars also act as signaling molecules. In retrospect, this role makes sense because, despite it being so central to plant growth and survival, their levels fluctuate. Furthermore, sugar production and preservation are costly, in terms of organs and machinery. Therefore, mechanisms have evolved to allow precise coordination of production with spatial and temporal utilization of sugars. Sugar-sensing in source (photosynthetic) and sink tissues may stimulate short-term biochemical and physiological responses, as well as long-term developmental responses. Such mechanisms may have subsequent effects on sugar production and preservation. They may also affect the partitioning of sugars among organs and stimulate differentiation processes, such as transition from a vegetative to a reproductive stage.

Significant progress has been made in understanding sugar-sensing in the context of photosynthesis and reserve accumulation, as well as the coordination of stomatal behavior and transpiration with sugar levels. However, many questions remain with regard to how sugar partitioning among organs and cell types is coordinated, how different cell types respond to sugars, how developmental, differentiation and physiological pathways are affected and which of these processes are related to sugar-sensing.

This Special Issue will include articles (original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions and reviews) on different aspects of sugar sensing, to advance our understanding of the different roles that sugars play in plant physiology and development.

Dr. David Granot
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Sugar sensing
• tissue-specific
• cell type
• meristems
• differentiation
• development
• sugar partitioning
• sugar–water relations