Transcriptional characterization of tomato roots response to iron deficiency

Iron (Fe) deficiency is a yield-limiting factor for a variety of field crops across the world and generally results from the interaction of limited soil Fe bioavailability and susceptible genotype cultivation. Tomato, a Strategy I, model plant for Fe deficiency, is an important economical crop. Tomato responses in order to improve Fe uptake are based on acidification of rhizosphere, reduction of Fe3+ to Fe2+ and transport of Fe2+ into the cells. Transcriptional profile obtained by roots (27-d) of 21-d-old tomato plants starved of iron for an additional week was compared with the transcriptional profile obtained for roots (27-d) of 21-d-old tomato plants grown for an additional week at 100 μM Fe. Tomato plants were hydroponically grown in both cases. Three different biological replicates were used for each sample repeating the experiment three times. All samples were obtained pooling roots of six plants (27-d-old).