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Updated: Sep 22, 2025
08:45
Quantitating Iron Transport Across the Mouse Placenta In Vivo Using Nonradioactive Iron Isotopes
Published on: May 10, 2022
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An ancient function of PGR5 in iron delivery?
Dario Leister1, Giada Marino1, Jun Minagawa2
1Plant Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, D-82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany.
Trends in Plant Science
|May 26, 2022
Summary
Antimycin A-sensitive cyclic electron flow (CEF) protects plants from photodamage. We propose proton gradient regulation 5 (PGR5) evolved from prokaryotic iron proteins, facilitating early CEF before specializing in photosynthesis.
Area of Science:
- Photosynthesis research
- Plant molecular biology
- Evolutionary biology
Background:
- Phototrophic organisms require protection from light-induced damage.
- Antimycin A (AA)-sensitive cyclic electron flow (CEF) is a key photoprotective mechanism in plants.
- The evolutionary origins of CEF are not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the evolutionary origins of proton gradient regulation 5 (PGR5), a protein crucial for AA-sensitive CEF.
- To explore the potential link between PGR5, iron metabolism, and the evolution of CEF.
Main Methods:
- Comparative sequence and structural analysis of PGR5.
- Phylogenetic analysis of PGR5 and related proteins.
- Bioinformatic approaches to infer protein function and evolutionary history.
Main Results:
- PGR5 shares sequence and structural similarities with ferritin-like proteins involved in iron metabolism.
- This suggests PGR5 may have originated from prokaryotic iron-mobilizing proteins.
- A primordial form of CEF might have arisen as a byproduct of iron transport.
Conclusions:
- PGR5's ancestral role in iron metabolism likely predates its specialization in CEF.
- The evolution of chloroplasts from cyanobacteria may have facilitated PGR5's functional shift.
- This provides insight into the co-evolution of iron homeostasis and photosynthetic electron transport.
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