Figure 6.

Model illustrating the changes observed in MEm plants growing in sd. At the end of a long night, the wild type (wt) uses organic acids to support respiration along with starch. The extremely low levels of malate and fumarate found in MEm plants may provide an initial signal (represented by the black file) generated after carbohydrate starvation at the end of the long night that induces the switch to use fatty acids and/or proteins for respiration. This carbon starvation (represented in gray) may trigger a cascade of events that result in morphological, biochemical, and physiological changes observed in the MEm plants growing in sd. Dashed files indicate transport processes.