Bacterial Mechanisms to Overcome Nutritional Immunity

The battle for nutrients between invading bacteria and its host is extremely complex. Mammals have evolved to possess ‘Nutritional immunity’ - a mechanism to sequester nutrients like zinc and iron thus limiting their availability to invading pathogens. In response, the evolving bacterial pathogen keeps pace with mammalian defences using specialized nutrient uptake system to alleviate the nutritional immunity pressure. Herein I will discuss our structural and functional insights into several bacterial nutrient acquisition systems (including the Bacterial Transferrin Receptor -TbpA/TbpB and a Zn uptake receptor -ZnuD) and a new sugar-phosphate transporter that provide bacteria with mechanism to acquire nutrients while within their host environment.