In a new study, researchers identify important new insights into a survival mechanism of the bacteria that cause rotting in certain plants, including some highly invasive weeds. The study, publishing on August 2 in the Open-Access journal PLOS Biology, demonstrates for the first time exactly how the bacterium Pectobacterium obtains the iron vital to its survival and replication: by pirating it from iron-bearing proteins in the host plants. The study was led by Dr. Rhys Grinter and Prof. Trevor Lithgow at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute of Monash University. The team used comparative genomics to forensically track the origins of an enzyme, called FusC, that turned out to be the key factor for the import and acquisition of iron.