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REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Inflammation
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1569953
This article is part of the Research Topic Role of bioinformatics and AI in understanding inflammation and immune microenvironment dynamics View all 8 articles
Host nutritional immunity and bacterial competition for iron metabolism: a constant switch between offense and defense
Provisionally accepted- 1 Wangjing Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
- 2 Xiyuan Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
- 3 Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
- 4 China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
Iron is an essential micronutrient for both hosts and pathogens, playing a central role in various critical biochemical processes necessary for life. The homeostasis and regulation of iron during infections are crucial. Hosts have evolved a mechanism called "nutritional immunity"-an innate immune defense strategy designed to retain and restrict the utilization of micronutrients like iron by pathogens.However, pathogens have also evolved, deploying various effective mechanisms to capture host iron, counteracting nutritional immunity, and affecting the host's normal iron metabolism and homeostasis. The competition for iron between hosts and pathogens is akin to a "tug-of-war," with macrophages emerging as central regulators orchestrating iron acquisition countermeasures and utilization by various pathogens.Elucidating the mechanisms of iron metabolism competition between hosts and pathogens is critical for the prevention and treatment of infections and chronic inflammatory diseases. Therefore, we discuss the changes in iron metabolism that occur due to host-pathogen interactions, how iron is utilized by pathogens to promote their survival and proliferation and emphasize the defensive role of macrophages in preventing pathogens from acquiring and utilizing iron.
Keywords: iron metabolism, host, pathogen, nutritional immunity, macrophage, siderophore
Received: 02 Feb 2025; Accepted: 17 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gao, Shiyi, Gong, Zhao, Li and LIU. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mengqi Gao, Wangjing Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
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