Trichodesmium is a biogeochemically important marine cyanobacterium, responsible for a significant proportion of the annual 'new' nitrogen introduced into the global ocean. These non-heterocystous filamentous diazotrophs employ a potentially unique strategy of near-concurrent nitrogen fixation and oxygenic photosynthesis, potentially burdening Trichodesmium with a particularly high iron require...

Iron is essential for oxygen transport because it is incorporated in the heme of the oxygen-binding proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin. An interaction between iron homeostasis and oxygen regulation is further suggested during hypoxia, in which hemoglobin and myoglobin syntheses have been reported to increase. This study gives new insights into the changes in iron content and iron-oxygen interact...

The Sanitation Hygiene Infant Nutrition Efficacy (SHINE) trial is designed to measure the independent and combined effects of improved water, sanitation, and hygiene and improved infant feeding on child stunting and anemia in Zimbabwe. We developed and pilot-tested the infant feeding intervention delivered by 9 village health workers to 19 mothers of infants aged 7-12 months. Between September ...

Monocytes can be activated by incubation with opsonized zymosan (Zop), and under these conditions can oxidize low density lipoprotein (LDL). We have characterized the biochemical changes in the lipoprotein after this oxidation. We found that monocyte-oxidized LDL has increased mobility on agarose gels, increased absorbance at 234 nm, increased content of lysophosphatidylcholine, and fluorescenc...

AIMS To evaluate the effects of vitamin E supplementation on haemoglobin concentration and the requirement for transfusion in premature infants treated with erythropoietin and iron. METHODS Randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial. Thirty infants </=32 weeks gestation and </=1250 g birth weight, who were defined as stable based on minimal requirements for respiratory support and phl...

Glutathione contributes to thiol-redox control and to extra-mitochondrial iron-sulphur cluster (ISC) maturation. To determine the physiological importance of these functions and sort out those that account for the GSH requirement for viability, we performed a comprehensive analysis of yeast cells depleted of or containing toxic levels of GSH. Both conditions triggered an intense iron starvation...

Acquisition of iron from host complexes is mediated by four surface-located receptors of Neisseria meningitidis. The HmbR protein and heterodimeric HpuAB complex bind to haemoglobin whilst TbpBA and LbpBA bind iron-loaded transferrin and lactoferrin complexes, respectively. The haemoglobin receptors are unevenly distributed; disease-causing meningococcal isolates encode HmbR or both receptors w...

The level of available iron in the mammalian host is extremely low, and pathogenic microbes must compete with host proteins such as transferrin for iron. Iron regulation of gene expression, including genes encoding iron uptake functions and virulence factors, is critical for the pathogenesis of the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans. In this study, we characterized the roles of the CFT1 and CFT2 ge...

AIMS To develop and validate a non-invasive method for measuring myocardial iron in order to allow diagnosis and treatment before overt cardiomyopathy and failure develops. METHODS AND RESULTS We have developed a new magnetic resonance T2-star (T2*) technique for the measurement of tissue iron, with validation to chemical estimation of iron in patients undergoing liver biopsy. To assess the c...