Ciencia Puerto Rico

Amphiphilic siderophores are molecules produced by microorganisms when ferric iron is not bioavailable. Thus, amphiphilic siderophores chelate ferric iron by a coordinating complex facilitating the cation acquisition. Due to the amphiphilicity, amphiphilic siderophores form micelles over their critical micelle concentration (cmc) when no iron is bounded to the siderophore. When iron is added, conformational changes occurred in the molecular structure of amphiphilic siderophores and vesicles were formed afterwards. The siderophores studied were produced by haloalkaliphilic bacteria isolated from Soap Lake, WA. Molecular characterization was performed via mass spectrometry and fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). Vesicle formation was analyzed by utilizing dynamic light scattering (DLS) that measures particle size of the colloidal suspension, and epifluorescence microscopy.