Trehalose and Trehalose metabolizing enzymes in wheat

Trehalose (α-D-glucopyranosyl-l,l- α -D-glucopyranoside) is a non reducing disaccharide of glucose. In this study, three wheat cultivars (Triticum aestivum L.) Tosun, Bolal (stress tolerant) and Cakmak (stress sensitive) were analysed for the presence of trehalose. It was found that trehalose had accumulated under salt and drought stress conditions in all wheat cultivars. The highest trehalose accumulation was detected in roots of Bolal cultivar under drought stress condition. Furthermore, trehalose metabolizing enzymes; trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) and trehalase enzyme activities were measured. The most interesting results that we found that TPS activity sharply increased under stress conditions. The activity of TPS in roots under drought stress condition was the highest and reached to 3-4 times of its activity under control condition. The increase in the activity of TPS showed parallelism with trehalose accumulation under stress condition. Trehalase activity in Bolal cultivar decreased under both salt and drought stress conditions, however there was no significant change in trehalase activity of Cakmak variety.