Mining iron: anthrax and heme.

Systemic anthrax presents as a dramatic and overwhelming bacterial infection (WHO, 2008). Always serious, often fatal even with the best modern medicine has to offer, it's onset is a quiet incubation period when symptoms remain mild as compared with many other acute bacterial infections. This period is a time of deadly expansion. After Bacillus anthracis spores gain entry into the body (inhalation of aerosolized spores is one well-characterized threat), they travel to the reginal lymph nodes and germinate (Dixon et al., 1999). Germination is followed rapidly by initial replication with expression of virulence factors, escape into the blood and, then, hematogenous spread throughout the victim - with intensive replication at each stage. Systemic anthrax often becomes a massive infection spreading to all sites in the body. Germination of just a few spores, within short order, results in bacilli numbers of 10 organisms per cc of blood, or even higher! Death often occurs within days of initial symptoms. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.