CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 160Legionella and Acanthamoeba researchBacterial Genetics and BiotechnologyMicrobial infections and disease research

Legionella pneumophila feoAB Promotes Ferrous Iron Uptake and Intracellular Infection

Open access
Robey, Marianne, Cianciotto, Nicholas P.·2002·Infection and Immunity
DOI 10.1128/iai.70.10.5659-5669.2002PMC PMC128349
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

In order to determine the role of ferrous iron transport in Legionella pathogenesis, we identified and mutated the feoB gene in virulent Legionella pneumophila strain 130b. As it is in Escherichia coli, the L. pneumophila feoB gene was contained within a putative feoAB operon.L. pneumophila feoB insertion mutants exhibited decreased ferrous but not ferric iron uptake compared to the wild type. Growth on standard buffered charcoal yeast extract agar or buffered yeast extract broth was unaffected by the loss of L. pneumophila FeoB. However, the L. pneumophila feoB mutant had a reduced ability to grow on buffered charcoal yeast extract agar with a reduced amount of its usual iron supplementation, a phenotype that could be complemented by the addition of feoB in trans. In unsupplemented buffered yeast extract broth, the feoB mutant also had a growth defect, which was further exacerbated by the addition of the ferrous iron chelator, 2,2′-dipyridyl. The feoB mutant was also 2.5 logs more resistant to streptonigrin than wild-type 130b, confirming its decreased ability to acquire iron during extracellular growth. Decreased replication of the feoB mutant was noted within iron-depleted Hartmannella vermiformis amoebae and human U937 cell macrophages. The reduced intracellular infectivity of the feoB mutant was complemented by the introduction of a plasmid containing feoAB. The L. pneumophila feoB gene conferred a modest growth advantage for the wild type over the mutant in a competition assay within the lungs of A/J mice. Taken together, these results indicate that L. pneumophila FeoB is a ferrous iron transporter that is important for extracellular and intracellular growth, especially in iron-limited environments. These data represent the first evidence for the importance of ferrous iron transport for intracellular replication by a human pathogen.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1128/iai.70.10.5659-5669.2002

Cites

63 of 63 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Robey and Cianciotto (2002) identified and characterized L. pneumophila Feo AB, which is homologous to E. coli and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium FeoAB.

    “Robey and Cianciotto (2002) identified and characterized L. pneumophila Feo AB, which bears homology to E. coli and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium FeoAB.”

    From Strategies of intracellular pathogens for obtaining iron from the environment (2015) · cites this paper as [48]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [1]Aisen, P. 1976. Iron metabolism. Ciba Found. Symp. 51: 1-17. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. [13]Cirillo, J. D., S. L. Cirillo, L. Yan, L. E. Bermudez, S. Falkow, and L. S. Tompkins. 1999. Intracellular growth in Acanthamoeba castellanii affects monocyte entry mechanisms and enhances virulence of Legionella pneumophila. Infect. Immun. 67:4427-4434. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Robey, M., & Cianciotto, N. P.
Affiliations
Northwestern University (US)
ORCID
Cianciotto, Nicholas P.
Venue
Infection and Immunity
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Published
2002-10
Volume
70
Issue
10
Pages
5659-5669
ISSN
  • 0019-9567 (ISSN-L)
  • 1098-5522
DOI
10.1128/iai.70.10.5659-5669.2002
PMC
PMC128349
OpenAlex
W2116089904
Cited by
160
References
63
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 7
FWCI
2.23
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.asm.org/non-commercial-tdm-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Infection and Immunity (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI034937, AI-34937)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Endocrinology › Legionella and Acanthamoeba research
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Microbiology › Microbial infections and disease research
Keywords
Legionella pneumophila, ferrous iron uptake, FeoB, iron transport, intracellular replication, iron limitation, amoebae, macrophages, bacterial pathogenesis, iron chelation, 2,2'-bipyridine, Hartmannella vermiformis, U937 cells, mouse lung infection
MeSH terms
Animals, Bacterial Proteins, Base Sequence, DNA, Bacterial, Genes, Bacterial, Genetic Complementation Test, Hartmannella, Humans, Iron, Legionnaires' Disease, Macrophages, Mice, Inbred A, Molecular Sequence Data, Mutation, Streptonigrin, Legionella pneumophila, U937 Cells, Drug Resistance, Bacterial, Cation Transport Proteins, Mice

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review