Determination of plants’ iron nutrition status by examining root secretions

Date

2026-7

Author

Turan, Ömer Faruk

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Iron (Fe) deficiency is a common stress for plants grown in calcareous soils. It leads to decrease in quality and quantity of the yield. To combat Fe deficiency, strategy I plants secrete catechol type coumarins including scopoletin and fraxetin. When Fe uptake strategies fail, Fe deficiency leads to yellowing of leaves, called chlorosis, the hallmark of Fe deficient plants. We hypothesized that monitoring root secretions can be used as an indicator for Fe deficiency. As a proof-of-concept, we subjected hydroponically grown Arabidopsis thaliana plants to Fe deficiency, monitored the Fe deficiency responses and correlated them with root secreted coumarins measured with recently developed surface plasmon resonance (SPR) chips. Furthermore, using Trifolium montanum plants characterized by constitutive Fe deficiency response, we assessed the amount of carbon lost to rhizosphere. Results showed that wild type Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings secreted negligible amount of scopoletin and fraxetin under Fe sufficiency whereas Fe deficiency induced secretions of those around 30 and 7 times respectively. Accumulation of coumarins in the media correlated with the intensity of the Fe deficiency treatment. Constitutive Fe deficiency response resulted in at least 13% of the carbon to be lost as root secretions. This study showed the adaptive importance of turning off Fe deficiency responses in Fe sufficiency and established a new concept to detect Fe deficiency from root secretions before the chlorosis sets in.

Subject Keywords

Iron nutrition status, Iron deficiency, Scopoletin, Fraxetin, Surface plasmon resonance

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/120641

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis