Siderophores are metal chelating secondary metabolites secreted by almost all organisms. Beside iron starvation, the ability to produce siderophores depends upon several other factors. Chemical structure of siderophore is very complex with vast structural diversity, thus the principle challenge involves its detection, quantification, purification and characterisation. Metal chelation is its most fascinating attribute. This metal chelation property is now forming the basis of its application as molecular markers, siderotyping tool for taxonomic clarification, biosensors and bioremediation agents. This has led researchers to develop and continuously modify previous techniques in order to provide accurate and reproducible methods of studying siderophores. Knowledge obtained via computational approaches provides a new horizon in the field of siderophore biosynthetic gene clusters and their interaction with various proteins/peptides. This review illustrates various techniques, bioinformatics tools and databases employed in siderophores' studies, the principle of analytical methods and their recent applications.

中文翻译：

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铁定型的最新进展：程序和应用

铁载体是几乎所有生物体分泌的金属螯合次级代谢物。除了缺铁外，产生铁载体的能力还取决于其他几个因素。铁载体的化学结构非常复杂，具有巨大的结构多样性，因此主要挑战涉及其检测、定量、纯化和表征。金属螯合是其最迷人的属性。这种金属螯合特性正在形成其作为分子标记物、分类学澄清的铁盐分型工具、生物传感器和生物修复剂的应用基础。这促使研究人员开发并不断改进以前的技术，以提供准确和可重复的研究铁载体的方法。通过计算方法获得的知识为铁载体生物合成基因簇及其与各种蛋白质/肽的相互作用领域提供了新的视野。这篇综述阐述了铁载体研究中采用的各种技术、生物信息学工具和数据库、分析方法的原理及其最近的应用。