Involvement of iron and ferritin in the potato-Phytophthora infestans interaction

CARLOS GARCIA-MATA; LORENZO LAMATTINA; RAUL OSCAR CASSIA

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PLANT PATHOLOGY

SPRINGER

Año: 2001 vol. 107 p. 557 - 562

0929-1873

This work shows that the infection of potato (Solanum tuberosum) detached leaves by the late blight pathogenPhytophthora infestans, was drastically reduced by adding deferoxamine, an exogenous iron chelator. Reactiveoxygen species in leaves inoculated with P. infestans were also reduced after adding deferoxamine. A leaf ferritincDNA fragment was obtained by PCR and used as probe for screening a tuber cDNA library. A cDNA (named StF1)encoding the iron-storing potato ferritin was cloned. StF1 is 915 bp in length and has an open reading frame of 230amino acids that contains the information for the mature 28 kDa subunit of potato ferritin. StF1 was used as probein northern blot hybridizations to analyze expression of the ferritin gene. In leaves, ferritin mRNA accumulated inresponse to pathogen attack. In tubers, ferritin mRNA increased upon treatment with the elicitor eicosapentaenoicacid. These results suggest that iron plays a role in the potato-P. infestans interaction.