The mobile ferrous iron pool in Escherichia coli is bound to a phosphorylated sugar derivative.

Based on in vivo Mössbauer spectroscopy it has previously been demonstrated that the intracellular iron pool of Escherichia coli, grown in iron deficient media supplemented with siderophores as the sole iron source, is dominated by a single Fe2+ and a single Fe3+ species. We have isolated the ferrous ion species and have purified it employing native column PAGE, chromatography and ultrafiltration. The purified compound displays an Mapp of 2.2 kDa and an extremely low isoelectric point (pI) of 1.05. It is shown that this ferrous ion binding compound is neither a protein nor a nucleotide, rather it is composed mainly of phosphorylated sugar derivatives. This compound binds approximately 40% of the cytoplasmic iron. Therefore it is proposed that this oligomeric ferrous carbohydrate phosphate represents the long sought after mobile, low molecular mass iron pool.