Iron (Fe) is a crucial micronutrient in plant metabolism; thus, iron homeostasis is critical for plant development. Permease in chloroplast 1 (PIC1) is the first protein determined in the chloroplast playing a role iron homeostasis. In the present study, the PIC1 gene was investigated at a genome-wide scale in four plant genomes; Arabidopsis, tomato, maize and sorghum. Based on the gene ontology database, 21 GO terms were found related to the PIC1 gene, most of which were involved in iron hemostasis and transport. The digital expression data revealed that the expression of the majority of PIC1 genes (62.5%) in Arabidopsis decreased under abiotic stress conditions. Expression profiles of tomato PIC1 (SlPIC1) and sorghum PIC1 (SbPIC1) genes were also analyzed under salt and drought stress conditions using Real Time-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Our wet-lab studies demonstrated that the SbPIC1 gene was down-regulated under salt and drought stresses in all tissues, while SlPIC1 was up-regulated in all but root tissue under drought stress. Some structural variations were detected in predicted 3D structures of PIC1 proteins and the structural similarity values varied between 0.23 and 0.35. Consequently, these results may contribute to the understanding of the PIC1 gene in iron transport and homeostasis in plants.

中文翻译：

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研究PIC1（叶绿体1中的渗透酶）基因在铁稳态中的作用：番茄和高粱的生物信息学和表达分析。

铁（Fe）是植物新陈代谢中至关重要的微量营养素。因此，铁稳态对植物发育至关重要。叶绿体1（PIC1）中的通透酶是在叶绿体中确定的第一个起铁稳态作用的蛋白质。在本研究中，在四个植物基因组中以全基因组规模研究了PIC1基因。拟南芥，番茄，玉米和高粱。根据基因本体论数据库，发现与PIC1基因相关的21个GO术语，其中大多数与铁的止血和转运有关。数字表达数据显示，在非生物胁迫条件下，拟南芥中大多数PIC1基因的表达（62.5％）下降。还使用实时定量PCR（RT-qPCR）在盐和干旱胁迫条件下分析了番茄PIC1（SlPIC1）和高粱PIC1（SbPIC1）基因的表达谱。我们的湿实验室研究表明，在盐和干旱胁迫下，所有组织中的SbPIC1基因均下调，而在干旱胁迫下，除根部组织外，所有其他组织中的SlPIC1基因均上调。在预测的PIC1蛋白的3D结构中检测到一些结构变异，并且结构相似性值在0.23和0.35之间变化。因此，这些结果可能有助于了解植物体内铁转运和体内稳态中的PIC1基因。