Structural basis for iron piracy by pathogenic Neisseria

Neisseria are obligate human pathogens causing bacterial meningitis, septicemia, and gonorrhea. Neisseria require iron for survival and can extract it directly from human transferrin for transport across the outer membrane. The transport system consists of TbpA, an integral outer membrane protein, and TbpB, a co-receptor attached to the cell surface; both proteins are potentially important vaccine and therapeutic targets. Two key questions driving Neisseria research are: 1) how human transferrin is specifically targeted, and 2) how the bacteria liberate iron from Users may view, print, copy, download and text and data- mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use