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Human iron metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that maintain human homeostasis of iron at the systemic and cellular level. Iron is both necessary to the body and potentially toxic. Controlling iron levels in the body is a critically important part of many aspects of human health and disease.
Parts-per-million cube of relative abundance by mass of elements in an average adult human body down to 1 ppm. About 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Only about 0.85% is composed of another five elements: potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium ...
Hephaestin, a ferroxidase that can oxidize Fe 2+ to Fe 3+ and is found mainly in the small intestine, helps ferroportin transfer iron across the basolateral end of the intestine cells. In contrast, ferroportin is post-translationally repressed by hepcidin, a 25-amino acid peptide hormone. The body regulates iron levels by regulating each of ...
Iron-binding proteins are carrier proteins and metalloproteins that are important in iron metabolism [1] and the immune response. [2] [3] Iron is required for life.Iron-dependent enzymes catalyze a variety of biochemical reactions and can be divided into three broad classes depending on the structure of their active site: non-heme mono-iron, non-heme diiron , or heme centers. [4]
Ferritin genes are highly conserved between species. All vertebrate ferritin genes have three introns and four exons. [8] In human ferritin, introns are present between amino acid residues 14 and 15, 34 and 35, and 82 and 83; in addition, there are one to two hundred untranslated bases at either end of the combined exons. [9]
The body of an adult human contains about 4 grams (0.005% body weight) of iron, mostly in hemoglobin and myoglobin. These two proteins play essential roles in oxygen transport by blood and oxygen storage in muscles. To maintain the necessary levels, human iron metabolism requires a minimum of iron in the diet.
The abundance of metal binding proteins may be inherent to the amino acids that proteins use, as even artificial proteins without evolutionary history will readily bind metals. [8] Most metals in the human body are bound to proteins. For instance, the relatively high concentration of iron in the human body is mostly due to the iron in hemoglobin.
Iron deficiency, or sideropenia, is the state in which a body lacks enough iron to supply its needs. Iron is present in all cells in the human body and has several vital functions, such as carrying oxygen to the tissues from the lungs as a key component of the hemoglobin protein, acting as a transport medium for electrons within the cells in the form of cytochromes, and facilitating oxygen ...