Ironing Out Fe Residence Time in the Dynamic Upper Ocean

Ocean science. Ironing out algal issues in the Southern Ocean.

Ironing out carbon export to the deep ocean.

In PNAS, Lopes et al. (1) present a novel approach to quantifying the efficiency of the biological carbon pump as Earth’s climate warmed from the ice bound glacial episode (26,000–18,000 y before present) to the equable climate of the present interglacial (10,000 y BP until present). The biological carbon pump begins with atmospheric CO2 transformation into chemical energy by marine photosynthe...

Ironing out cancer.

New insights into the roles of proteins that regulate cellular iron in cancer growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis have recently emerged. Discoveries of the roles of ferroportin, hepcidin, lipocalin 2, and members of the six transmembrane epithelial antigen of the prostate (STEAP) and iron regulatory protein (IRP) families in cancer have provided specificity and molecular definition to the role...

Ironing out Ferroportin.

Maintaining physiologic iron concentrations in tissues is critical for metabolism and host defense. Iron absorption in the duodenum, recycling of iron from senescent erythrocytes, and iron mobilization from storage in macrophages and hepatocytes constitute the major iron flows into plasma for distribution to tissues, predominantly for erythropoiesis. All iron transfer to plasma occurs through t...

Ironing out fatigue.

Women who are not anemic but who suffer from fatigue may benefit from iron supplementation. In this issue of Blood, Krayenbühl et al provide strong evidence that women complaining of fatigue who were not anemic but who had reduced or absent iron stores were symptomatically improved after receiving parenteral iron. Given the numbers of women who are iron deficient, the findings could find broad ...