Strategies of Intracellular Pathogens for Obtaining Iron from the Environment

Figure 3

Iron acquisitions systems in Candida albicans. To acquire iron, C. albicans possesses three high-affinity iron acquisition systems: (1) a reductive system responsible for iron exploitation from transferrin or ferritin or from the environment; (2) a siderophore uptake system responsible for iron acquisition from a range of siderophores produced by other organisms; and (3) a heme-iron uptake and degradation system capable of acquiring iron from hemoglobin and probably from heme-proteins.