Iron and Microbial Growth

Iron is an essential element for the growth and development of all the scale of living organisms, and acquiring iron is crucial for the development of any pathogen. Iron participates in a large number of cellular processes, the most important of which are oxygen transport, ATP generation, cell growth and proliferation, and detoxification. It is a coenzyme or enzyme activator of ribonucleotide reductase, a key enzyme for DNA synthesis, which catalyzes the conversion of ribonucleotides to deoxyribonucleotidides and particularly of deoxyuridine to thymidine.1