EN
Soluble acid invertase (SAI, EC 3.2.1.26), catalyzes the hydrolysis of sucrose into hexose sugars, and it has been considered a key enzyme for carbohydrate metabolism. In the present study, the activity of SAI enzyme was determined to establish a correlation between the change in transcript levels and enzyme activity in high and low sugar accumulating sugarcane cultivars, in various internodal tissues at different developmental stages. A decrease in SAI activity and transcript levels was observed with age, during all the developmental stages in both the cultivars. A negative correlation between SAI activity and sucrose content was observed in mature and immature internodes; however, there was a positive correlation between SAI activity and content of hexose sugars. These results imply that SAI plays a crucial role in sucrose partitioning in various intermodal tissues in high and low sugar cultivars. In addition to this, the changes in enzyme activity also resulted in changes in transcript level.