Patent ID: 8022269

Claim:
A method of producing a plant having sink tissue with a different carbohydrate phenotype than that of a corresponding sink tissue of a control plant, the method comprising selecting from a plurality of transgenic plants which comprise in their nucleome a polynucleotide that is operably connected to a transcriptional control element and that encodes a sugar-metabolizing enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of an endogenous sugar of the plant to an alien sugar, a transgenic plant that produces the sugar-metabolizing enzyme at a level or functional activity so that the sink tissue of the transgenic plant has a different carbohydrate phenotype than that of the corresponding sink tissue of the control plant, wherein the different carbohydrate phenotype is selected from the group consisting of 1) an increased total carbohydrate content, 2) an increased total storage or non-structural carbohydrate content, 3) an increased sucrose content, 4) an increased content of an endogenous carbohydrate without a reduction in total carbohydrate content, and 5) an accumulation of an alien sugar without a commensurable reduction in the total endogenous carbohydrate content, as compared to that of the corresponding sink tissue of the control plant, wherein the sugar-metabolizing enzyme is a sucrose isomerase, wherein the endogenous sugar is sucrose, and wherein the plant accumulates sucrose as its primary storage product.