Main components of iron metabolism in microbial systems — Analyzed by in vivo Mössbauer spectroscopy

Abstract

Two major intracellular iron components (Fe2+ and Fe3+) are detectable in a large variety of microbes grown in low-iron media supplemented with siderophores indicating their widespread occurrence within the microbial world. Isolation of the two species fromE. coli revealed that the ferrous component corresponds to a protein exhibiting a molecular mass of 15kDa and the ferric component to a protein of 17kDa. Growth of a Gram positiveStaphylococcus in an iron-rich medium did not yield typical bacterioferritin-like features suggesting that this organism may exhibit a strategy not requiring bacterioferritin to cope with high iron levels in the growth medium.