In grapevine (Vitis vinifera), as in many crops, soluble sugar content is a major component of yield and economical value. This paper identifies and characterizes a Glycogen Synthase Kinase3 protein kinase, cloned from a cDNA library of grape Cabernet Sauvignon berries harvested at the ripening stage. This gene, called VvSK1, was mainly expressed in flowers, berries, and roots. In the berries, ...

Field-grown sugar beets were analysed for morphological characters, sucrose content, and reproducible transcript profiles by macroarray analyses with 11,520 unique sugar-beet cDNA targets in two different years. Seasonal differences were partly compensated by expressing sampling dates as thermal time. During early beet development the number of cambial rings, root length, and sucrose concentrat...

BACKGROUND Saturated fatty acids are toxic to liver cells and are believed to play a central role in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. In experimental steatohepatitis induced by feeding mice a methionine-choline-deficient (MCD) diet, the degree of liver damage is related to dietary sugar content, which drives de novo lipogenesis and promotes the hepatic accumulation of saturate...

Sugars are essential contributors to fruit flavour. Controlled atmosphere (CA) storage has been proved to be beneficial for maintaining harvested fruit quality. To explore regulatory mechanism of sugar metabolism in fruit stored in CA condition, we cloned several genes, encoding key enzymes, involved in sugar metabolism in apple fruit, and analyzed sugar contents, along with gene expression and...

In this study we sought to determine the effect of daily sucrose consumption in young rats on their subsequent performance in tasks that involve the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. High levels of sugar consumption have been associated with the development of obesity, however less is known about how sugar consumption influences behavioral control and high-order cognitive processes. Of particu...

Many nectar-feeding bird species decrease food intake when sugar concentration in food is increased. This feeding response can be explained by two alternative hypotheses: compensatory feeding and physiological constraint. The compensatory feeding hypothesis predicts that if birds vary intake to maintain a constant energy intake to match energy expenditures, then they should increase intake when...

Effects of thermal transitions (glass transition, crystallization), water, and glycerol on invertase activity in freeze-dried carbohydrate systems were investigated. Efficacy of κ-carrageenan to delay sugar crystallization in freeze-dried carbohydrate systems was also studied. Water sorption properties and glass transition temperatures, Tg, were determined for freeze-dried carbohydrate-sucrose ...

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is commonly found in soft drinks and juice beverages, as well as in many pre-packaged foods such as breakfast cereals, baked goods and dairy desserts. Historically, sucrose (table sugar) was primarily added to processed foods and beverages as the sweetening agent. In recent years, the use of HFCS has significantly increased in popularity due to its sweetness, abi...

According to most textbooks, only non-reducing carbohydrate species such as sucrose, sugar alcohols, and raffinose-family sugars function as phloem translocates. Occasional abundance of reducing sugar species (such as hexoses) in sieve-tube sap has been discarded as an experimental artefact. This study, however, discloses a widespread occurrence of hexoses in the sieve-tube sap. Phloem exudatio...

Metabolic resources in adults of holometabolous insects may derive either from larval or adult feeding. In Drosophila melanogaster, reproduction and lifespan are differently affected by larval vs. adult resource availability, and it is unknown how larval vs. adult acquired nutrients are differentially allocated to somatic and reproductive function. Here we describe the allocation of carbon deri...