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Impairment of sugar transport in the vascular system acts on nitrogen remobilisation and nitrogen use efficiency in Arabidopsis

The carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) metabolisms have long been known to be coupled, and this is required for adjusting nitrogen use efficiency. Despite this intricate relationship, it is still unclear how a deregulation of sugar transport impacts N allocation. Here we investigated, in Arabidopsis, the consequences of the simultaneous downregulation of the genes coding for the sugar transporters SWEET11, SWEET12, SWEET16, and SWEET17 genes on various anatomical and physiological traits ranging from the stem’s vascular system development, plant biomass production, seed yield, and N remobilisation and use efficiency. Our results show that intracellular sugar exchanges mediated by SWEET16 and SWEET17 proteins specifically impact the vascular development but do not play a significant role in the distribution of N. Most importantly, we showed that the double mutant swt11swt12, which is also impacted in the vascular development, displays an improved nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen remobilisation to the seeds. In addition, a significant negative correlation between sugar and amino acids contents and the inflorescence stem radial growth exists, highlighting the complex interaction between the maintenance of C/N homeostasis and the inflorescence stem development. Our results thus deepen the link between sugar transport, C/N allocation and vascular system development. Highlight The disruption of genes coding for SWEET11 and SWEET12 sugar transporters negatively impacts the stem development but improves the plant nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen remobilisation to the seeds.