Abstract
Plant ferritins have some unique features. Firstly, they are localized in plastids where they have been observed by electron microscopy studies. Their subunits are synthesized from poly A+ mRNA as a precursor, which is transported to plastids resulting in a mature 28 kDa ferritin subunit able to assemble in a 24-mer apoprotein. Despite their different cytological localization, plant and animal ferritins arise from a common ancestral gene which is illustrated by their high sequence homology. This homology implies an extraordinary conservation of their three dimensional structure. However, an additional sequence is found in the NH2-terminal part of the plant protein. The first part of this extension is a transit peptide responsible for plastid targeting. The second part is specific of plant mature ferritin subunit and is known to be the site of free radical cleavage which occurs in vitro during iron exchange and in vivo during germination. Plant ferritin mineral cores have a high phosphate content and are amorphous. In contrast reconstitued plant mineral cores in absence of phosphate were crystalline ferrihydrite. Therefore plant mineral cores seem to be more related to their bacterial counterpart than to their animal one. This could be due to the high phosphate concentration found within plastids. Secondly, ferritins are not uniformly distributed in the different organs of a plant throughout its life cycle. Under normal iron nutrition conditions, they are not detectable in vegetative organs (roots and leaves). Ferritins accumulate in seed during their maturation. Then, ferritins are degraded from embryo axis and cotyledons during the first days of germination. Ferritin has also been found to accumulate at a specific stage of the nodule development in legumes. Besides these developmental controls, plant ferritins have been shown to be induced in a range of 40-50 fold by iron overload. However, in contrast with animal systems, it has recently been demonstrated that regulation of this iron response in cultured soybean cells is entirely accounted for by transcription, while the major control of ferritin synthesis is translational in animals. Very recently, using an inducible system of ferritin synthesis in maize plantlets, it was found that abscisic acid is involved in the iron response leading to the accumulation of ferritin within plastids.
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Briat, J. et al. (1995). Molecular and cellular biology of plant ferritins. In: Abadía, J. (eds) Iron Nutrition in Soils and Plants. Developments in Plant and Soil Sciences, vol 59. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0503-3_39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0503-3_39
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