The Occurrence of the Amino Acid Nicotianamine in Plants and Microorganisms. A Reinvestigation

Cloning of nicotianamine synthase genes fromArabidopsis thaliana

“…As already mentioned, the tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) mutant chloronerva does not produce NA (Rudolph et al 1985). NAS activity was not detected in either the shoots or roots of chloronerva, regardless of the plants' Fe nutritional status (Higuchi et al 1996b).…”

“…Since NAS activity is not enhanced by Fe deficiency in Strategy I plants (Higuchi et al , 1996b Emerging role of NA in plants. NA is always present in plant cells (Noma and Noguchi 1976;Fushiya et al 1982;Rudolph et al 1985) and has the ability to chelate metal cations. Since the NAS gene belongs to a multi-gene family in the barley genome, we assumed that NA is involved in the survival of graminaceous plants other than simply being a precursor of MAs (Higuchi et al 1999b).…”

“…Evidence supporting this role includes the correlation of the concentration of NA in the phloem with that of Fe and other metals and the fact that the NA synthesis-defective tomato mutant chloronerva (Rudolph et al 1985;Higuchi et al 1996a, b) has a phenotype indicative of Fe deficiency (Stephan and Grtin 1989;Stephan and Scholz 1993;Pich and Scholz 1996;Stephan et al 1996). Moreover, von Wiren et al (1999) reported that both NA and DMA have the ability to chelate Fe; NA plays a major role in the chelation process at alkaline pH values, whereas at acidic pH values, DMA is mainly involved.…”

The effect of Cd and Zn contents in plants on Fe binding into organic substances of spinach biomass

“…For this reason, fraction D is one of the most important fractions for metals metabolism. Phytochelatins, metallothioneins, non-heme proteins, enzymes, phytoferritin and various chelating agentsmugineic acid (Takemoto et al 1978), deoxymugineic acid, avenic acid (Fushiya et al 1981), amino acid nicotianamine (Buděšínský et al 1980, Rudolph et al 1985 can be present in fraction D. Nicotianamine has an optimal molecular structure for chelating iron ions and is considered to be a phytosiderophore with an essential function in cellular iron transport and/or metabolism. Walker and Welch (1987) reported these compounds to form stable anionic complexes with several trace elements.…”

Concentrations of iron and phytosiderophores in xylem sap of iron-deficient barley plants

“…N icotianamine is known to be responsible for the movement of Fe2+ in shoots and roots Stephan and Scholz 1990;von Wiren et al 1999) and this substance is present in both Strategy I and II plants (Fushiya et al 1982;Rudolph et al 1985). Physiological relationships among citrate, nicotianamine, and PS in the translocation of Fe need to be investigated in Strategy II plants.…”