Sucrose Supply and Utilization for Latex Production

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Abstract
The economic product of Hevea is a rubber-containing cytoplasm which is continuously formed in an artificially created sink from which it is withdrawn at short regular intervals of time. Being a nonphotosynthetic tissue, the productivity of the sink will depend on photosynthate supply by the source leaves, and on long-distance translocation, allocation, and efficiency of utilization of mobile sugars for laticiferous tissue metabolism and rubber formation. In most plants, assimilates are translocated as sucrose and Hevea does not appear to be an exception to this rule. Sucrose is largely the principal sugar in latex cytosol. 53 , 74 , 85 , 483 , 484 In addition, a low level of raffinose was also detected while free glucose and fructose were not measurable, provided the activity of invertase was prevented during latex collection and analysis. 483 , 484 When radiolabeled sucrose, fructose, or glucose was applied on external bark, most radioactivity of latex collected 30 min later was as sucrose, irrespective of the source of the label. 479 Thus, understanding the mechanism of sucrose transport, partitioning, and metabolism is of fundamental importance in the efforts to identify and over-come major physiological limitations to Hevea productivity.

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