Experimental sink removal induces stress responses, including shifts in amino acid and phenylpropanoid metabolism, in soybean leaves.

The repeated removal of flower, fruit, or vegetative buds is a common treatment to simulate sink limitation. These experiments usually lead to the accumulation of specific proteins, which are degraded during later stages of seed development, and have thus been designated as vegetative storage proteins. We used oligonucleotide microarrays to assess global effects of sink removal on gene expression patterns in soybean leaves and found an induction of the transcript levels of hundreds of genes with putative roles in the responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition, these data sets indicated potential changes in amino acid and phenylpropanoid metabolism. As a response to sink removal we detected an induced accumulation of γ-aminobutyric acid, while proteinogenic amino acid levels decreased. We also observed a shift in phenylpropanoid metabolism with an increase in isoflavone levels, concomitant with a decrease in flavones and flavonols. Taken together, we provide evidence that sink removal leads to an up-regulation of stress responses in distant leaves, which needs to be considered as an unintended consequence of this experimental treatment.