Abstract
Little is known about the role of iodine in plant physiology. We evaluated the impact of low concentrations of iodine on the phenotype, transcriptome and proteome of Arabidopsis thaliana. Our experiments showed that removal of iodine from the nutrition solution compromises plant growth, and restoring it in micromolar concentrations is beneficial for biomass accumulation and leads to early flowering. In addition, iodine treatments specifically regulate the expression of several genes, mostly involved in the plant defence response, suggesting that iodine may protect against both biotic and abiotic stress. Finally, we demonstrated iodine organification in proteins. Our bioinformatic analysis of proteomic data revealed that iodinated proteins identified in the shoots are mainly associated with the chloroplast and are functionally involved in photosynthetic processes, whereas those in the roots mostly belong and/or are related to the action of various peroxidases. These results suggest the functional involvement of iodine in plant nutrition.
Highlights
Plants need macro- and micro-nutrients for their growth and development
The concentration of iodine in the nutrient solution had a marked effect on the inflorescence length, which was approximately 41 and 45% longer compared to the control in 0.20 and 10 μM KIO3 treated plants, respectively (Figure 1C), and a comparable effect was seen on the inflorescence fresh weight (FW) and dry weight (DW) (Supplementary Table S3)
Plants can take up iodine from the soil solution through the root system, but they assimilate it from the air or absorb it through the leaves if dissolved in salt solutions or in rain
Summary
Nutrients are chemical elements that are components of biological molecules and/or influence essential metabolic functions. Studying the effect of different concentrations and forms of iodine on the growth of several crops of agricultural importance, Borst Pauwels (1961) referred to iodine as a micro-nutrient for plant, and a similar conclusion was derived by Lehr et al (1958) working on tomato. A growing number of recent studies reporting the effect of iodine on plant growth have focused on the benefit of increasing iodine content in plants as a biofortificant in human and animal health (Medrano-Macías et al, 2016; Gonzali et al, 2017). Plant tissues generally increase their iodine content following its exogenous administration. The presence of iodine as a trace element/contaminant in the soil/nutrient solution/atmosphere cannot be avoided, preventing the effects related to the presence/absence of this element from being observed
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