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Switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum), a perennial, polyploid, C4 warm-season grass is among the foremost herbaceous species being advanced as a source of biomass for biofuel end uses. At the end of every growing season, the aerial tissues senesce, and the below-ground rhizomes become dormant. Future growth is dependent on the successful over-wintering of the rhizomes. Although the importance of rhizome health to overall year-upon-year plant productivity has been long recognized, there is limited information on seasonal changes occurring during dormancy at both the transcriptome and metabolite levels. Here, global changes in transcriptomes and metabolites were investigated over two growing seasons in rhizomes harvested from field-grown plants. The objectives were: (a) synthesize information on cellular processes that lead to dormancy; and (b) provide models that could account for major metabolic pathways present in dormant switchgrass rhizomes. Overall, metabolism during dormancy appeared to involve discrete but interrelated events. One was a response to abscisic acid that resulted in dehydration, increases in osmolytes and upregulation of autophagic processes, likely through the target of rapamycin complex and sucrose non-fermentative-related kinase-based signaling cascades. Another was a recalibration of energy transduction through apparent reductions in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, increases in substrate level generation of ATP and reducing equivalents, and recycling of N and possibly CO2 through refixation. Lastly, transcript abundances indicated that cold-related signaling was also occurring. Altogether, these data provide a detailed overview of rhizome metabolism, especially during dormancy, which can be exploited in the future to improve winter survival in switchgrass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The daily life of photosynthetic plants revolves around sugar production, transport, storage and utilization, and the complex sugar metabolic and signaling networks integrate internal regulators and environmental cues to govern and sustain plant growth and survival. Although diverse sugar signals have emerged as pivotal regulators from embryogenesis to senescence, glucose is the most ancient and conserved regulatory signal that controls gene and protein expression, cell-cycle progression, central and secondary metabolism, as well as growth and developmental programs. Glucose signals are perceived and transduced by two principal mechanisms: direct sensing through glucose sensors and indirect sensing via a variety of energy and metabolite sensors. This review focuses on the comparative and functional analyses of three glucose-modulated master regulators in Arabidopsis thaliana, the hexokinase1 (HXK1) glucose sensor, the energy sensor kinases KIN10/KIN11 inactivated by glucose, and the glucoseactivated target of rapamycin (TOR) kinase. These regulators are evolutionarily conserved, but have evolved universal and unique regulatory wiring and functions in plants and animals. They form protein complexes with multiple partners as regulators or effectors to serve distinct functions in different subcellular locales and organs, and play integrative and complementary roles from cellular signaling and metabolism to development in the plant glucose signaling networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]