[Wolfgang Schmidt] A quick method to quantify iron in plants
POST:
Iron (Fe) is an indispensable micronutrient for plant growth and development. Quantification of Fe serves as an important parameter for analyzing the fitness of plants from different accessions, or mutants and transgenic lines with altered expression of specific genes. To quantify metals in plant samples, methods based on inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) or inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) have been widely employed. Although these methods are highly accurate, these methodologies rely on sophisticated equipment which is not always available. In the latest issue of Bio-Protocol, Wolfgang Schmidt’s team outline a simple and cost-efficient protocol to quantify Fe concentrations in roots and shoots of Arabidopsis seedlings, by using a spectroscopy-based assay to quantify Fe2+-[BPDS]3 complexes against a set of standards. This protocol provides a fast and reproducible method to determine Fe levels in plant samples with high precision and low costs.