Eisenhomöostase in E. coli

The ZupT protein is the first described member of the ZIP (Zrt- and Irt-related protein) family of iron and zinc transporters in prokaryotes. ZIP-like proteins occur in all domains of life, including man, and are important factors for iron, manganese and zinc homeostasis. The goals of our proposal are (i) to understand the physiological role of ZupT amongst other ferrous transporters in Escherichia coli), (ii) to identify amino acid residues in ZupT important for function and metal specifity, (iii) characterize ZupT mediated transport biochemically in cooperation with Christopher Rensing (University of Arizona, Tucson, USA) and (iv) to identify new iron transporters employing DNA-micro array analysis for E. coli.