According to ELTE researchers, a special absorption of iron takes place inside the head of cabbage

(Photo: Pixabay)

According to a statement sent to MTI by the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) on Wednesday, their discovery may affect our food industry and health knowledge and its application, since our plant-based foods and their pigments are an important source of iron for all people.

As highlighted in the announcement, iron is one of the most important mineral nutrients for the living organism

This element is therefore essential for enzymes in both humans and plants, which play a role in vital life processes, such as cellular respiration or photosynthesis. It is therefore essential for metabolism that iron can be incorporated into these enzymes. Photosynthesis – the metabolic process that uses sunlight energy to produce organic matter in plants from carbon dioxide and water – requires iron. Since the process of photosynthesis takes place inside the green chromophores, the iron in the plant cells must be delivered to the interior of these chromophores as well. At the Department of Plant Physiology and Molecular Plant Biology of ELTE, Ádám Solti and his research group have been researching the molecular processes enabling iron uptake by green pigments for years.

During the research, a head of kale was examined

The plant can be considered a huge, modified bud, from the trunk of which many, differently green and differently developed leaves arise. On a head of kale cut in half, you can see that the outermost leaves exposed to light are green and fade inward, the innermost leaves are white-yellowish. The phenomenon is related to the fact that in the absence of light, angiosperms cannot produce the green pigment, chlorophyll, and without it they are not capable of photosynthesis either. In the announcement, Katalin Solymosi, one of the research participants, is quoted as saying about the benefits of the plant: the inner leaves of the cabbage heads are blocked from the light by the outer, green leaves, so a light-deficient state is gradually created as you move towards the inside of the heads. In the inner leaf layers, instead of the accumulation of green chlorophylls, only the yellowish color of the present carotenoids can be seen, and special structure, photosynthetically inactive pigment bodies, so-called etioplasts, develop in them, he said. its iron uptake mechanism was investigated and compared with its ability to photosynthesize. The physiological processes they observed for the first time showed that the absorption of iron by the chromophores, although smaller, follows exactly the principle that is also characteristic of the green chromophores, the announcement states. “For the past fifteen years, we thought that the absorption of iron by the green bodies was exclusively linked to photosynthesis and, to a lesser extent, to the direct chemical reduction of iron by sunlight. The results of our studies brought a surprising change in everything we previously knew about the vital nutrient management of cells,” he concluded. Ádám Solti compiled the results of the research.

All of these basic research-type scientific tests are also important for the food industry and health

Our plant-based foods and their pigments are an important source of iron for all people. That is why it is important to understand which factors play a significant role in iron uptake and iron accumulation in the chromophores. The research was carried out with the grant funding of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH) (K-135607). The work of Máté Sági-Kazár was supported by the New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology. The research of Katalin Solymosi (ELTE), Sándor Lenk (BME) and Ádám Solti (ELTE) was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the announcement states.

MTI