Beating Leishmania's iron armor

Leishmania parasites that lack an essential iron transporter lose the ability to replicate within macrophages. These parasites persist but do not lead to host pathology, report Chau Huynh et al. (page 2363). Targeting the newly identified LIT1 pathway could be a potential route to leishmaniasis therapy.

Intracellular parasites need iron to grow and multiply, but within the phagolysosome compartment, which such parasites inhabit, the supply of iron is limited. Specialized iron transporters had been identified in other intracellular pathogens, but none had been found in Leishmania, until now. Huynh and colleagues searched the Leishmania genome for sequences with similarity to known iron transporters and found a novel gene they call Leishmania iron transporter 1 (LIT1).

Having confirmed that LIT1 behaved as an iron transporter in yeast, the team deleted the gene...