The Natural Resistance-Associated Macrophage Protein from the Protozoan Parasite <i>Perkinsus marinus</i> Mediates Iron Uptake
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Microbial pathogens succeed in acquiring essential metals such as iron and manganese despite their limited availability because of the host's immune response. The eukaryotic natural resistance-associated macrophage proteins mediate uptake of divalent metals and, during infection, may compete directly for metal acquisition with the pathogens' transporters. In this study, we characterize the Nramp gene family of Perkinsus marinus, an intracellular parasite of the eastern oyster, and through yeast complementation, we demonstrate for the first time for a protozoan parasite that Nramp imports environmental Fe. Three PmNramp isogenes differ in their exon-intron structures and encode transcripts that display a trans splicing leader at the 5' end. The protein sequences share conserved properties predicted for the Nramp/Solute carrier 11 (Slc11) family, such as 12-transmembrane segment (TMS) topology (N- and C-termini cytoplasmic) and preferential conservation of four TMS predicted to form a pseudosymmetric proton/metal symport pathway. Yeast fet3fet4 mutant complementation assays showed iron transport activity for PmNramp1 and a fusion chimera of the PmNramp3 hydrophobic core and PmNramp1 N- and C-termini. PmNramp1 site-directed mutagenesis demonstrated that Slc11 invariant and predicted pseudosymmetric motifs (TMS1 Asp-Pro-Gly and TMS6 Met-Pro-His) are key for transport function. PmNramp1 TMS1 mutants D76E, G78A, and D76E/G78A prevented membrane protein expression, while TMS6 M250A, H252Y, and M250A/H252Y specifically abrogated Fe uptake; the TMS6 H252Y mutation also correlates with divergence from Nramp specificity for divalent metals.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".