Abstract | Objective: The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of some Gram negative bac-teria to acquire different sources of iron in order to identify the iron supplement with lowest bacterial bioavailability. Material and Methods: The effects of four different sources of iron (FeSO4, Fe(NO3) FeCL3 and Carbonyl Fe) were compared as iron source for bacterial growth in minimal medium with several bacterial spe-cies. The effects of nano-encapsulating some of these compounds was also tested. The ef-fects of these compounds on the formation of biofilms were also assessed. Bacterial growth was determined by measuring bacteria density at 600nm. The formation of biofilms was de-termined by using the crystal violet binding assay. Results Differences were observed between different sources of iron, especially with Carbonyl iron, which seemed to be poorest source of iron for all bacterial species. The effects of different sources of iron on the formation of biofilms were also noticeable. The encapsulation of some of the iron compounds had major effects on growth and biofilms formation. Conclusion The variation in iron bioavailability for bacteria with different iron sources suggests that iron supplement should be chosen not only based on their human uptake efficiency, but also by choosing iron sources with the poorest bacterial bioavailability. In addition, the results ob-tained following encapsulation indicate that this might provide a mechanism to further limit bacterial iron uptake, and therefore pathogenicity. |
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