| ironjustice@aol.com 2005-07-06, 8:55 am |
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Tuberculosis - A new bacterial path for finding iron
04 Jul 2005
A new pathway for intracellular iron acquisition by mycobacteria -
including the agent which causes tuberculosis - is described in the
August issue of Nature Chemical Biology. Tuberculosis is a major global
pathogen for which there is increasing drug resistance. This iron
acquisition mechanism represents a potential new antibiotic target.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis multiplies within endocytic vesicles called
phagosomes within macrophages - cells of the immune system - during
infection, but nothing was known about how these bacteria found the
iron necessary for growth. John Groves and colleagues found that
lipophilic siderophores from mycobacteria - molecules released by
bacteria to scavenge iron - could grab iron from the inside of
macrophages. The resulting siderophore-metal complexes then accumulated
in lipid droplets, specific cellular domains for lipid sorting. When
these lipid droplets were associated with metal-charged siderophores,
they were located adjacent to phagosomes ready for iron delivery.
The findings by the team suggest that M. tuberculosis has taken
advantage of macrophage cellular lipid trafficking mechanisms to
acquire iron.
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio717
Reference URL
http://www.nature.com
SOURCE:
http://www.alphagalileo.org
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