Sugar transport: Occurrence of trehalase activity in sugar cane.

Trehalase activity was detected in extracts of roots, leaves, and stalk tissue from sugar cane. The enzyme was not bound to cell particulates, and had a pH optimum of 6.2 and a Michaelis constant for trehalose of 1×10(-4) M. The level of enzyme detected in mature stalk tissue was too low to account for glucose transport into tissue slices. The enzyme level was high in immature stalk tissue in which the vacuolar sugar pool turns over rapidly. Trehalose synthesis and breakdown may be part of a system for transport of hexose out from the vacuole.