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Siderophores, iron-scavenging small molecules, are fundamental to bacterial nutrient metal acquisition and enable pathogens to overcome challenges imposed by nutritional immunity. Multimodal imaging mass spectrometry allows visualization of host-pathogen iron competition, by mapping siderophores within infected tissue. We have observed heterogeneous distributions of Staphylococcus aureus siderophores across infectious foci, challenging the paradigm that the vertebrate host is a uniformly iron-depleted environment to invading microbes.
Perry et al. (Mon,) studied this question.