To understand the use of real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) for detecting the relative abundance of mRNA, the expression of a tobacco ferritin gene (NtFer1) was detected by Northern blot and real-time RT-PCR. The results indicated that both of the two methods were able to detect mRNA expression of NtFer1 clearly and similarly, namely NtFer1 expression was responsive to iron-overload, and the abundance of NtFer1 mRNA was greatly increased after iron loaded for 6 h. To compare the effect and sensitivity of two methods, results revealed that Northern blot need 30 μg of total RNA and at least 3 days for the total protocol performance, whereas real-time RT-PCR only need 2 μg of total RNA and 1.5 h. The real-time RT-PCR is rather sensitive and effective than Northern blot. Real-time RT-PCR analysis can be used to rapidly detect the relative abundance of mRNA expression instead of Northern blot analysis.