Guard cell-specific down-regulation of the sucrose transporter SUT1 leads to improved water use efficiency and reveals the interplay between carbohydrate metabolism and K+ accumulation in the regulation of stomatal opening

•We engineering a guard cell-specific down-regulation of sucrose transporter (SUT1) gene.•Transgenic plants leads to low sucrose content in guard cells, low stomatal conductance and reduced transpiration rate.•Our results indicate that sucrose transport in guard cell could be used to obtain plants with greater water use efficiency.

Sucrose is a key metabolite in guard cell (GC) regulation and has been proposed to form a key metabolic connection between mesophyll cells and GCs. However, the importance of sucrose transport across the GC plasma membrane in stomatal movements remains to be determined. Here, we characterized transgenic tobacco plants expressing an antisense gene construct for the SUCROSE TRANSPORTER 1 (SUT1) driven by the GC specific promoter KST1. GCs of transgenic plants contained less sucrose, more starch and had increases in K+ content. Lower GC sucrose content was associated with lower stomatal conductance that, in turn, led to a lower transpiration rate and higher carbon isotope composition ratio compared to wild type plants. Although the transgenic plants showed reduced growth under optimal water supply condition, they showed improved growth compared to wild type plants under osmotic stress and demonstrated lower water consumption that was correlated with higher relative water content under water-deficit conditions. This demonstrates the desiccation postponement phenotype of these plants together with an improved tolerance to water deficit. Taken together, our results indicate that SUT1 has an important role in stomatal movements and suggest that genetic manipulation of GC sucrose transport could be used to obtain plants with greater water use efficiency.