Journal article

Publication year: 1983

Pages: 78-80

Journal: Inorganica Chimica Acta

Volume number: 79

ISSN: 0020-1693

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-1693(00)95108-9

Publisher: Elsevier

Abstract: 

With the possible exception of certain
strains of lactic acid bacteria, iron is known to be an essential
element for all species of microbes and for all higher organisms. Within
the cell, iron protein catalysts participate in some of the reactions
most fundamental to life, including aerobic and anaerobic energy
metabolism, nitrogen fixation, photosynthesis, and generation of the
deoxyribotides required for synthesis of DNA. Iron is abundant in the
environment but may be insoluble or in some other way unavailable.
Mechanisms for assimilation of iron have been evolved by all species
but, because of the plasticity and diversity of microbial metabolism,
those in unicellular organisms are the most readily studied.

The particular system of microbial iron acquisition investigated in this laboratory is labelled high-affinity
and consists of low molecular weight, virtually Fe(III) specific
ligands, termed siderophores, and the matching membrane receptors for
the complexed Fe(III) ion. This system, which is coordinately expressed
under iron starvation, has been detected in virtually all aerobic and
facultative anaerobic microorganisms carefully examined for its presence.

In general, siderophores can be relegated to one of two chemical classes, viz.,
hydrozamic acids and catechols. The number of siderophores
characterized to date, some by crystallography and/or high resolution
nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, must now number several score.
The complete systems, comprised of siderophore and specific receptor, is
the converse is true, possibly because of the aromatic character of
enterobactin and its propensity to adhere to proteins such as albumin.

Harvard Citation style: Bindereif, A., Thorsness, P. and Neilands, J. (1983) Deletion mapping of the aerobactin gene complex of plasmid CoIV, Inorganica Chimica Acta, 79, pp. 78-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-1693(00)95108-9

APA Citation style: Bindereif, A., Thorsness, P., & Neilands, J. (1983). Deletion mapping of the aerobactin gene complex of plasmid CoIV. Inorganica Chimica Acta. 79, 78-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-1693(00)95108-9