Cytosolic invertases and the control of plant growth.

植物在光合作用的过程中将空气中的二氧化碳转化为叶片中的糖。这些糖从叶子输出到植物的所有其他部分(根、茎、花、种子等)，在那里它们被转化为植物成分，如淀粉、脂肪、蛋白质和纤维。我们的项目涉及这一过程的初始步骤。目前，我们不知道这些步骤是什么，也不知道是什么控制了多少糖被转化为淀粉、脂肪、蛋白质和纤维。我们最近一直在研究缺乏酶的植物，这些酶可能参与最初的步骤。这提供了新的令人惊讶的信息：一些酶的损失对植物几乎没有影响，而另一些酶的损失(特别是一种被称为中性转化酶的酶)会减缓植物的生长，因此植物非常发育迟缓。在这个项目中，我们想要全面了解中性转化酶家族：它们的功能，它们是如何工作的，以及它们在植物细胞中的存在位置。特别是，我们想知道为什么中性转化酶是正常生长所必需的。除了提供有关作物生产力的新信息外，我们的结果还将有助于理解植物中储存了多少糖，以及有多少糖被转化为有用的材料，如纤维。这种平衡影响了我们如何利用我们的作物，并给了我们新的机会来改善我们的粮食以及生产“绿色”产品和生物燃料。

Plants convert carbon dioxide from the air into sugars in their leaves in the process of photosynthesis. These sugars are exported from the leaf to all of the other parts of the plant (roots, stems, flower, seeds etc), where they are converted into plant components such as starch, fats, proteins and fibre. Our project concerns the initial steps in this process. At the moment we do not understand what these steps are, or what controls how much of the sugar is converted to starch, to fats, to protein, and to fibre. We have recently been studying plants that lack enzymes that may be involved in the initial steps. This has provided new and surprising information: loss of some of the enzymes has almost no effect on the plant whereas loss of others (in particular a sort of enzyme called neutral invertase) slows plant growth so the plant is very stunted. In this project we want to understand fully the family of neutral invertase enzymes: what they do, how they work and where they exist in the plant cell. In particular, we want to know why the neutral invertases are necessary for normal growth. As well as providing new information about crop productivity, our results will have implications for understanding how much sugar is stored in plants and how much is converted to useful materials such as fibre. This balance affects how we use our crops, and gives us new opportunities to improve them for our food and for the manufacture of 'green' products and biofuels.