Overview of Yersinia pestis Metallophores: Yersiniabactin and Yersinopine.

The pathogenic anaerobic bacteria (), which is well known as the plague causative agent, has the ability to escape or inhibit innate immune system responses, which can result in host death even before the activation of adaptive responses. Bites from infected fleas in nature transmit between mammalian hosts causing bubonic plague. It was recognized that a host's ability to retain iron is essential in fighting invading pathogens. To proliferate during infection, , like most bacteria, has various iron transporters that enable it to acquire iron from its hosts. The siderophore-dependent iron transport system was found to be crucial for the pathogenesis of this bacterium. Siderophores are low-molecular-weight metabolites with a high affinity for Fe. These compounds are produced in the surrounding environment to chelate iron. The siderophore secreted by is yersiniabactin (Ybt). Another metallophore produced by this bacterium, yersinopine, is of the opine type and shows similarities with both staphylopine and pseudopaline produced by and , respectively. This paper sheds light on the most important aspects of the two metallophores as well as aerobactin a siderophore no longer secreted by this bacterium due to frameshift mutation in its genome.