Integrative analysis of hexaploid wheat roots identifies signature components during changing regimes of iron and phosphate starvation

The effect of Fe deprivation was investigated at transcriptomic level in hexaploid wheat. A genome-wide gene expression reprogramming was observed with a total of 5854 genes showing differential expression in roots of wheat subjected to Fe-starved medium. Subsequent analysis revealed a predominance of strategy-II mode of Fe uptake, with induced genome bias contribution from the A and B genomes. In general, the predominance of genes encoding for nicotianamine synthase, yellow stripe like transporters, metal transporters, ABC transporters and zinc-induced facilitator-like protein was noticed. Interestingly, Fe starvation causes a significant temporal increase of glutathione-S-transferase, which indicates the important role of glutathione in the response to Fe starvation in wheat roots. Taken together, our result provides new insight on wheat response to Fe starvation and lays foundation to design strategies to improve Fe nutrition in crops.