A hitchhiker's guide to the Arabidopsis ferrome

Unraveling the mysteries behind the perception and response to iron deficiency has resulted in a vast collection of data that is summarized under the topic ferromics. The analysis of the immediate effects induced by iron deficiency has been facilitated and in most cases greatly accelerated by the development of analytical and computational tools. These tools permit on the one hand the collection of information from a large number of sources and on the other the analysis of this collection to detect patterns in the re-ordering homeostatic processes at the genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic levels. Deciphering the encrypted information from high-throughput datasets have become a major challenge in plant biology, but this information also sets the stage for a more complete, integrative view on how plants respond to a varying supply of iron. (C) 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.