BACKGROUND Oedema is a sine qua non for the diagnosis of kwashiorkor yet the mechanisms leading to oedema remain ill defined. AIMS To relate the plasma concentration of radical promoting 'free' iron to the degree of oedema in patients with kwashiorkor. SETTING University teaching hospital. PATIENTS Fifteen children with kwashiorkor, nine of whom had severe and six of whom had a moderate d...

The exploration of superconducting iron-free pnictides with a ThCr2Si2-type or related structure and the study of their superconducting properties are important in order to get a deeper understanding of the pairing mechanism of 122 iron pnictides. Here we review the properties of 122-type iron-free pnictides superconductors with structures similar to that of BaFe2As2. Evidence of fully gapped n...

The uptake of iron by the absorptive cells of the duodenum, and its subsequent transfer to the lamina propria, has been studied using “Fe and high-resolution radioautography in mice rendered iron deficient by diet, in mice with dietary iron overload, and in mice with hereditary malabsorption of iron (s/a). In all, as in normally iron replete mice, two phases of iron absorption can be distinguis...

In colon enterocytes and in well-differentiated colon cancer CaCo-2 cells, InsP6 (inositol hexakisphosphate) inhibits iron uptake by forming extracellular insoluble iron/InsP6 complexes. In this study, we confirmed that CaCo-2 cells are not able to take up iron/InsP6 but, interestingly, found that the cells are able to internalize metal-free and Cr3+-bound InsP6. Thus, the inability of CaCo-2 c...

Iron is essential for fundamental cell functions but is also a catalyst for chemical reactions involving free radical formation, potentially leading to oxidative stress and cell damage. Cellular iron levels are therefore carefully regulated to maintain an adequate substrate while also minimizing the pool of potentially toxic "free iron." The main control of body iron homeostasis in higher organ...

INTRODUCTION Haemoglobin (Hb) E beta-thalassaemia is a common thalassaemic disorder in Southeast Asia and is very common in the eastern and north-eastern parts of India. The disease cause rapid erythrocyte destruction due to the free radical mediated injury but factors for the oxidative injury are not clearly known. We investigated the free reactive iron (non-haem) mediated insult in Hb E beta-...

Plasma from patients with iron overload resulting from idiopathic hemochromatosis contains nontransferrin-bound iron, measurable by the bleomycin, assay. During venesection therapy, the concentration of bleomycin iron declines in a way highly correlated with plasma ferritin concentrations. Even when patients had been venesected to give very low total plasma iron concentrations and high transfer...

Trichomonas vaginalis is a parasitic protozoan which infects the urogenital tract and requires iron as an essential nutrient. Iron is known to upregulate various adhesins required for cytoadherance and other factors involved in pathogenesis. At mucosal surfaces, iron is chelated by lactoferrin resulting in low levels of free iron. However, pathogens have evolved mechanisms for an increased upta...