Fig. 4

Comparative transcriptome analysis of Arabidopsis and tomato plants in response to sulfate starvation reveal conserved and specific features. a Venn diagram showing sulfate-responsive genes shared between Arabidopsis and tomato plants. The plant comparative genomics resource PLAZA 4.0 was used to identify the orthologous genes. The Arabidopsis sulfate-responsive genes were obtained from a meta-analysis [43]. b GO term enrichment analysis of genes exclusively regulated by sulfate in Arabidopsis. The 10 most over-represented biological functions are shown along with the number of genes belongs to each GO term. c GO term enrichment analysis of genes exclusively regulated by sulfate in tomato plants. The 10 most over-represented biological functions are shown along with the number of genes belongs to each GO term. d Sulfate starvation increase phosphate content in tomato roots and leaves of plants grown under full nutrient or S-limiting conditions for 3 weeks. Phosphate content was determined by the malachite green assay [69]. A Student’s t-test was performed to test the significance (P < 0.05) of the differences between sulfate-starved and control samples (*). Values plotted correspond to the means of three independent experiments ± standard deviation. 3–5 different plants were measured for each experimental replicate