All plants require iron for normal growth and development.  When sufficient quantities of iron are not available, symptoms of iron-deficiency develop.
Due to its poor solubility, iron is present in soil water in extremely low concentrations. In response to the paucity of available iron in soil water, several mechanisms for its uptake have evolved. One of these mechanisms, chelation, is operative in the grasses, the group of flowering plants that includes important agricultural crops such as corn, wheat, and rice.  Grass roots secrete compounds called phytosiderophores which chelate iron ions present in soil water.  Dr. Elsbeth Walker and her research team have cloned the yellow stripe 1 (ys 1) gene and shown that the product of chelation, the phytosiderophore-iron complex, is moved across the plasma membrane of corn root cells by the protein Yellow Stripe 1 (YS 1).  This study appeared in a recent issue of the journal Nature.
The cloning of ys 1 is a significant advance in the elucidation of the mechanism by which grasses acquire and distribute iron.  An understanding of iron uptake may permit the engineering of iron-rich crop plants that could play an important role in alleviating iron deficiency anemia which afflicts three billion people worldwide.  Since the iron phytosiderophore chelates ions other than iron, plants into which ys 1 has been inserted might prove useful for the removal of metal ions from contaminated soils.