Ferroptosis in plants: triggers, proposed mechanisms, and the role of iron in modulating cell death

Abstract

Regulated cell death plays key roles during essential processes along the plant life cycle. It takes part of specific developmental programs and maintains the organism homeostasis in response to unfavorable environments. Ferroptosis is a recently discovered iron-dependent cell death pathway characterized by the accumulation of lipid reactive oxygen species. Ferroptosis in plants shares all the main hallmarks described for ferroptosis in other systems. Those specific features include biochemical and morphological signatures that seem conserved among species. However, plant cells have specific metabolic pathways and a high degree of metabolic compartmentalization. Together with their particular morphology, these features add more complexity to the plant ferroptosis pathway. In this review, we summarize the most recent advances in elucidating the roles of ferroptosis in plants, focusing on specific triggers, main players and underlying pathways.

Recent Development on Plant Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Enzymes and Their Functions in Plant Development and Stress Signaling

“…Recently, a new form of cell death, called ferroptosis, has been evidenced in plants. Ferroptosis depends on ROS-derived reactive lipid peroxides, but, currently, it is unclear how plants regulate ferroptosis [ 145 , 146 , 147 , 148 ]. We speculate that this may require the localized expression of ALDHs with a broad substrate specificity to circumvent cell death at the site of infection.…”

The iron will of the research community: advances in iron nutrition and interactions in lockdown times

“…Regulated cell death is often part of a defence response in plants, and, in some cases, iron may be involved in triggering cell death. Iron-dependent cell death, named ferroptosis, was recently described in mammalian cells and the same features have been observed in plants in the context of plant–pathogen interactions, as reviewed in this issue ( Distefano et al , 2021 ).…”

Transcriptomic analysis revealed reactive oxygen species scavenging mechanisms associated with ferrous iron toxicity in aromatic Keteki Joha rice

“…Lipid peroxidation and programmed cell death can occur under different environmental stresses. However, Fe-mediated lipid peroxidation and programmed cell death results are quite different from others and are termed Ferroptosis 50 . Rice has developed several Fe tolerance mechanisms, but at severe conditions, only the ROS homeostasis was hypothesized to be essential and important in the tolerance mechanism 11,12 .…”

“…The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted October 14, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.13.464192 doi: bioRxiv preprint mediated lipid peroxidation and programmed cell death results are quite different from others and are termed Ferroptosis 50 . Rice has developed several Fe tolerance mechanisms, but at severe conditions, only the ROS homeostasis was hypothesized to be essential and important in the tolerance mechanism 11,12 .…”