Revelation of endogenously bound Fe2+ ions in the crystal structure of ferritin from Escherichia coli

• Crystal structure of ferritin was determined.
• Endogenously expressed iron’s were identified.
• Binuclear iron sites were observed at A and B active sites.

Ferritin is an iron regulatory protein. It is responsible for storage and detoxification of excess iron thereby it regulates iron level in the body. Here we report the crystal structure of ferritin with two endogenously expressed Fe atoms binding in both the sites. The protein was purified and characterized by MALDI-TOF and N-terminal amino acid sequencing. The crystal belongs to I4 space group and it diffracted up to 2.5 Å. The structural analysis suggested that it crystallizes as hexamer and confirmed that it happened to be the first report of endogenously expressed Fe ions incorporated in both the A and B sites, situated in between the helices.