On Wednesday January 28th, at 11 am in room 115, Catherine Curie will give a talk on iron movement in plant :

Iron movement in plants : new routes for novel functions

Iron in soil is abundant but scarcely available to plants, which have therefore evolved strategies to actively solubilize and acquire Fe in the root. Aside from the high affinity uptake machinery, whose molecular actors are now rather well known, we have recently obtained interesting hints about a low affinity transport system. Once inside root epidermal cells, Fe is mobilized to sink tissues and target compartments. Our group has been able to study Fe distribution and movement within the plant through the development of a method of Fe imaging. The establishment of an “atlas” of Fe distribution in Arabidopsis has confirmed long-suspected locations but also uncovered new ones, including a strong sink in pollen grains and a large pool in the nucleolus. We have also characterized transporters required for intracellular compartmentalization of Fe as well as Fe ligands that help circulate Fe to its target compartments. Finally, we have obtained preliminary results on the role of Fe/Mn transporters of the NRAMP family in plant immunity.