Iron acquisition strategies in land plants: not so different after all

What is it about?

Iron is an essential element for plants growth, which affects yield and nutritional quality of crops. Iron is abundant in soil but is often not readily available to be taken up by roots. Plants have evolved a number of biochemical mechanisms in order solubilize immobile iron, and cope with iron scarcity. Grasses such as cereals and other species such as pea, tomato or cabbage use possess different mechanisms, termed strategy 2 and strategy 1, respectively. In this article, we show that two species using different strategies, namely rice and the lab model species Arabidopsis, use a similar set of genes and biochemical processes.

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