Opportunities and challenges of microbial siderophores in the medical field

Abstract

Siderophores are low-molecular-weight secondary metabolites that function as iron chelators. Under iron-deficiency conditions, they are produced by a wide variety of microbes, allowing them to increase their iron uptake. The primary function of these compounds is the environmental iron scavenging and its transport into the cytosol. Iron is then reduced to its ferrous form to operate as an enzymatic cofactor for various functions, including respiration, nitrogen fixation, photosynthesis, methanogenesis, and amino acid synthesis. Depending on their functional group, siderophores are classified into hydroxamate, catecholate, phenolate, carboxylate, and mixed types. They have achieved great importance in recent years due to their medical applications as antimicrobial, antimalarial, or anticancer drugs, vaccines, and drug-delivery agents. This review integrates current advances in specific healthcare applications of microbial siderophores, delineating new opportunities and challenges as viable therapies to fight against diseases that represent crucial public health problems in the medical field.Key points• Siderophores are low-molecular-weight secondary metabolites functioning as iron chelators.• The siderophore’s properties offer viable options to face diverse clinical problems.• Siderophores are alternatives for the enhancement of antibiotic activities.

Siderophore-producing bacteria from Spitsbergen soils—novel agents assisted in bioremediation of the metal-polluted soils

“…Under iron-deficient environment, many microorganisms produce siderophore, i.e., small molecular weight ligands (typically 1 kDa). These iron-chelating molecules are reported to increase Fe bioavailability and its transport across microbial cell membranes (Patel et al 2018 ; Passari et al 2023 ). In addition, it has been demonstrated that siderophore production may be induced by the presence of HM at high concentrations, and the binding of other metals, e.g., Al, Ag, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Mn, Pb, and Zn (Schalk et al 2011 ; Saha et al 2016 ; Patel et al 2018 ), has been extensively studied.…”