Ironing Out Cell Death Mechanisms

Ironing out the Details: Exploring the Role of Iron and Heme in Blood-Sucking Arthropods

Heme and iron are essential molecules for many physiological processes and yet have the ability to cause oxidative damage such as lipid peroxidation, protein degradation, and ultimately cell death if not controlled. Blood-sucking arthropods have evolved diverse methods to protect themselves against iron/heme-related damage, as the act of bloodfeeding itself is high risk, high reward process. Pr...

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 a Midlife Crisis

There is a strong correlation between age, genomic instability, and the development of cancer. Working in yeast, Veatch et al. (2009) now propose that defects in the biogenesis of iron-sulfur clusters arising as a consequence of mitochondrial dysfunction contribute to the increase in genomic instability as cells age.

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

Induction of Apoptosis and Non-Apoptosis in Human Breast Cancer Cell Line (MCF-7) by Cisplatin and Caffeine

Background: Molecular targeted therapy by different cell death inducers are recently considered in cancer therapy. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of cisplatin and inositol trisphosphate kinase inhibitor (caffeine) on human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). The pattern of cell death in MCF-7 cells following the exposure to cisplatin and caffeine in individual and combination form...