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Aroun Kalyana

Data Based Questions

ai) Plants increase the sugar concentration of phloem sap to such high levels by using active
transport to load the sugar into the phloem at sources (apoplastic loading of sucrose). By actively
transporting protons out of the phloem cells using proton pumps, a proton gradient is formed due to
the accumulation of protons outside of the cells. These protons then passively diffuse back into the
phloem, using a co-transporter, which requires sucrose movement, resulting in a build up of sucrose
in the phloem’s sieve tubes

aii) High concentrations of sucrose cause high hydrostatic pressures to develop, since high
concentrations of sucrose in the phloem cells (at the source) means that the sap solution is very
hypertonic. Therefore, (lots of) water will enter the phloem through osmosis. Due to the
incompressibility of water, the build up of water causes hydrostatic pressure to increase, which in
turn forces sugars to other parts of the plant in a process called mass flow.

bi) Up until 0.25 mol of sucrose concentration ingested by the aphid, the percentage of
oligosaccharides is zero. After 0.25 moles of sucrose concentration till 0.5 moles of sucrose
concentration, the percentage of oligosaccharides increases at a very rapid rate to about 85%
concentration (steep gradient on the graph). After 0.5 moles of sucrose concentration (85%
oligosaccharide concentration) , the percentage of oligosaccharides stops increasing and
plateaus/very slightly decreases.

bii) Aphids use enzymes to reduce the solute concentration in order to reduce water loss (by
osmosis), so that lots of water isn’t drawn out from cells into the very hypertonic sap solution by
osmosis.

ci) Phloem sap isn’t a very good source of amino acids, since all the amino acids except from one are
found in concentrations of 10% or less in the phloem sap. Additionally, the majority of the essential
amino acids are only present in very low concentrations in phloem sap (at around 1%), and are
present at lower concentrations in phloem sap than in the aphid proteins.

cii) This is because plant and aphid proteins will have different amino acid compositions (as they will
have different genomes, so will have different orders of bases in their DNA) and also because the
amino acids in the phloem sap are used by plants to make plant proteins, as opposed to aphid
proteins.

di) Antibiotics could be added to the phloem sap which the aphids then feed on. Then, the rates of
protein synthesis in the aphids fed on antibiotic containing phloem sap could be compared with
aphids fed on normal sap (control), to see the role and effect of Buchnera, as the antibiotics would
kill the Buchnera.

dii) Few animals use phloem sap as the main part of the diet, because there are many problems with
using phloem sap. Firstly, the animal would need to have a mechanism to prevent their cells from
losing too much water by osmosis and dehydrating due to the high solute concentrations in phloem
sap. Also, another major problem is the lack of essential amino acids in the phloem sap, which are
needed to build proteins in the animal – the animal would have to find alternative sources of these
amino acids.

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