The advent of heme during evolution allowed organisms possessing this compound to
safely and efficiently carry out a variety of chemical reactions that otherwise were difficult or …

Iron is essential to virtually all organisms, but poses problems of toxicity and poor solubility.
Bacteria have evolved various mechanisms to counter the problems imposed by their iron …

Microbial pigments are gaining more attention in recent times due to their versatile
applications in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and textile industries. The development …

Discovery of a relict chloroplast (the apicoplast) in malarial parasites presented new
opportunities for drug development. The apicoplast–although no longer photosynthetic–is …

The fungus Cryptococcus neoformans is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity among
HIV-infected individuals. We utilized the completed genome sequence and optimized …

Fluorescent reporter proteins such as green fluorescent protein are valuable noninvasive
molecular tools for in vivo real-time imaging of living specimens. However, their use is …

Virtually all bacterial pathogens require iron to infect vertebrates. The most abundant source
of iron within vertebrates is in the form of heme as a cofactor of hemoproteins. Many …

Higher plants produce four classes of tetrapyrroles, namely, chlorophyll (Chl), heme,
siroheme, and phytochromobilin. In plants, tetrapyrroles play essential roles in a wide range …

Heme is an integral part of proteins involved in multiple electron transport chains for energy
recovery found in almost all forms of life. Moreover, heme is a cofactor of enzymes including …

The mitochondrion of Plasmodium species is a validated drug target. However, very little is
known about the functions of this organelle. In this review, we utilize data available from the …