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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE this weekend deals with pathogen iron piracy from the host during illnesses. Iron is a rate-limiting metal for pathogen growth, and pathogen hosts have figured out elaborate methods to try and limit access to this metal by pathogens, who in turn have been equally creative in finding ways to steal this critical commodity. View in LinkedIn

PATHOGENS NEED IRON. "Haemophilus influenzae is an obligate human commensal/pathogen. This haem autotroph must acquire haem from its host to sustain aerobic growth." This is common for many pathogens, bacterial, fungal or viral. This obligate need for iron has led to a range of iron acquisition strategies by the invasive pathogens, and creative iron sequestering responses by their hosts. https://lnkd.in/egknWXi View in LinkedIn

THIS DETAILED JOURNEY into mobile genetic elements is designed for a purpose, as it will be a Trojan Horse into a big and important topic that is too hot for most academics to touch. Careers can incinerate in this theme. But I have nothing to loose. And the topic deserves serious treatment. Softly, softly. View in LinkedIn

TRANSFERRIN DYNAMICS. "The iron-deficient transferrins will inhibit the growth of certain bacteria and fungi by making iron unavailable for bacterial metabolism. Such activity is abolished if the transferrin is saturated with iron. Overwhelming evidence is now available to indicate that the transferrins play an important role in mammalian host-defense mechanisms." https://lnkd.in/e9yjFnc View in LinkedIn

CODE WRITERS, HACKERS and other IT experts would do well to study carefully the creative and diverse ways of stray code in living systems such as mobile genetic elements. Art imitates life, as most of the biomimicy community will tell you. Never more true in the intimate parallels of the possibilities of informational code. View in LinkedIn

"TRANSFERRINS are iron-binding blood plasma glycoproteins that control the level of free iron in biological fluids. Transferrin glycoproteins bind iron tightly, but reversibly. Although iron bound to transferrin is less than 0.1% (4 mg) of total body iron, it forms the most vital iron pool with the highest rate of turnover (25 mg/24 h)." https://lnkd.in/ech9XqN View in LinkedIn

RAPID FREE IRON SCAVENGING. "In a healthy individual iron is largely intracellular, sequestered within ferritin or as a cofactor of heme complexed to hemoglobin within erythrocytes. Any extracellular free iron is rapidly bound by circulating transferrin. Hemoglobin or heme that is released as a result of natural erythrocyte lysis is captured by haptoglobin and hemopexin, respectively. Taken together, these factors ensure that vertebrate tissue is virtually devoid of free iron." https://lnkd.in/epJAeXg View in LinkedIn

STARVE THE INVADER. "The aerobic environment and neutral pH of serum ensures that extracellular iron is insoluble and hence difficult to access by invading pathogens. This difficulty is enhanced by the serum protein transferrin, which binds iron with an association constant of approximately 10(36).Taken together, these factors ensure that the amount of free iron available to invading bacteria is vastly less than what is required to replicate and cause disease." https://lnkd.in/epJAeXg View in LinkedIn

IRON MOAT. "Vertebrates are devoid of free iron, ensuring that all bacterial pathogens encounter a period of iron starvation upon entering their hosts. In keeping with this, bacterial pathogens have evolved to sense iron depletion as a marker of vertebrate tissue. This sensing typically involves transcriptional control mediated by the iron-dependent repressor known as Fur (ferric uptake regulator)." https://lnkd.in/epJAeXg View in LinkedIn

RAISE THE DRAWBRIDGE. "In cases of systemic infection, the organism responds by lowering its total serum iron, so as to make the serotransferrin present less saturated with iron...The iron apparently moves into the storage tissues from the circulation, and furthermore, it is withheld from circulation by the reticuloendothelial system." This results in low serum iron, high unsaturated iron binding, and more active serotransferrins. https://lnkd.in/e9yjFnc View in LinkedIn