Now that we've talked about how water moves through xylem, let's look at how sugar is transported through phloem. The movement of sugars happens via bulk flow, and the sugars move from what's called the source to the sink. The source is basically tissue where sugar enters the phloem, and a sink is tissue where sugar exits the phloem. This whole process, this bulk flow of sugars from source to sink, is called translocation. When sugars are loaded into the phloem, or enter the phloem, we call that phloem loading. They enter via secondary active transport. What's going to be used is a proton pump to create a proton gradient. Here we have the outside of the cell, here we have the inside, this is our membrane, and this proton pump is going to pump protons out here. Out here, we are going to have a high concentration of protons. This concentration gradient is going to allow this proton sucrose symporter to bring sugar into the phloem. It's going to move a proton down its concentration gradient, and at the same time, move a sucrose into the phloem against its concentration gradient. We call the stuff inside the phloem, phloem sap, and basically, it's mostly sucrose with some other dissolved sugars, a little bit of water, and some hormones and minerals, but mainly, very sugary, mostly sucrose, like sappy, sticky material.
How this phloem sap is going to move through the phloem is explained by the Pressure Flow Hypothesis. This is the most commonly agreed upon theory for the movement of sap through phloem. Essentially, the idea is this: sugar is going to be more concentrated at the source. Right? So here we have our source, which I'm representing with this little faucet icon there. Right? It's our source of sugar, it's our sugar tap. I put it in a leaf because, a leaf is going to be one of those tissues that is going to produce sugars, and from there they will enter the phloem. Here we have our symporter. This is our proton sucrose symporter. Here's our proton pump. So we're going to load sugar into the phloem, and this is going to be our phloem. Over here, we have the xylem. Now, what's going to happen if a lot of solutes, in this case, sucrose, wind up in the phloem over here? What's that going to do to the solute potential compared to the xylem that's mostly water. Right? This is going to be our low solute potential. We're going to have higher solute potential over here. So water is going to move from the xylem to its neighbor, the phloem, due to the high concentration of sugar, in the areas near the tissues that produce sugars. This is going to cause an increase in turgor pressure in the phloem over here.
Now, down by the sink, the sink, that's like your bummer mate, you know, they never do the dishes, they don't pull their weight, they don't do anything, they just take your stuff, the sink is going to just suck up all that sugar. So sugar is going to be way less concentrated down at the sink, and that's actually going to cause water to leave the phloem and enter the xylem. So here, our solute potential compared to the xylem is going to be higher, and our solute potential in the xylem over here is going to be lower compared to the phloem. So over here, water is going to go back to the xylem, and this means we're going to have lower turgor pressure there. So, putting this all together, we have high turgor pressure up here, and low turgor pressure down there, due to water entering the phloem up here, leaving the phloem down here. And that's going to cause a positive pressure difference to build between the sink and the source. So we're going to have a positive pressure potential compared to down here, which means we're going to get bulk flow in this direction. So that's all I have for this lesson. Hopefully now you have a good understanding of how xylem sap moves through xylem, and phloem sap moves through phloem. I'll see you guys next time.