Vacuolar compartmentation complicates the steady-state analysis of glucose metabolism and forces reappraisal of sucrose cycling in plants

Failure to consider vacuolar compartmentation of glucose can have a marked influence on estimates of sucrose cycling from steady-state metabolic flux analysis. Mathematical modelling shows that measurements of the labelling of both cytosolic and vacuolar glucose are required to resolve the fluxes involving intracellular glucose in plants.