Fungal pathogens cause life-threatening diseases in humans, and the increasing
prevalence of these diseases emphasizes the need for new targets for therapeutic …

Iron acquisition is challenging in most environments. As an alternative to elemental iron,
organisms can take up iron-protoporphyrin IX, or heme. Heme can be found in decaying …

Pathogens must compete with hosts to acquire sufficient iron for proliferation during
pathogenesis. The pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus neoformans is capable of acquiring iron …

Fungi have a remarkable capacity to take up iron when present in any of a wide variety of
forms, which include free iron ions, low-affinity iron chelates, siderophore–iron chelates …

Iron is essential for nearly all aerobic organisms. One source of iron in nature is in the form
of heme. Due to its critical physiological importance as a cofactor for several enzymes …

Candida albicans is a major fungal pathogen that can utilise hemin and haemoglobin as
iron sources in the iron‐scarce host environment. While C. albicans is a heme prototroph …

Highlights•Heme can be used as iron source in saprophytic and parasitic fungi.•Parasitic
fungi can utilize heme from blood hemoglobin.•C. albicans secretes hemophores of the …

Most fungi and bacteria express specific mechanisms for the acquisition of iron from the
hosts they infect for their own survival. This is primarily because iron plays a key catalytic …

The devastating infections that fungal pathogens cause in humans are underappreciated
relative to viral, bacterial and parasitic diseases. In recent years, the contributions to …

The iron scarcity in the host environment presents a challenge for infecting microorganisms.
Fungi can assimilate iron via reductive, nonreductive, and host molecule-specific …