BACKGROUND Cardiac complications secondary to iron overload are the leading cause of death in beta-thalassemia major. Approximately two thirds of patients maintained on the parenteral iron chelator deferoxamine have myocardial iron loading. The oral iron chelator deferiprone has been demonstrated to remove myocardial iron, and it has been proposed that in combination with deferoxamine it may ha...

PURPOSE To investigate the retinal-protective effects of the oral iron chelator deferiprone (DFP) in mice lacking the iron regulatory hormone hepcidin (Hepc). These Hepc knockout (KO) mice have age-dependent systemic and retinal iron accumulation leading to retinal degeneration. METHODS Hepc KO mice were given DFP in drinking water from age 6 to 18 months. They were then compared to Hepc KO m...

We have continued the preclinical evaluation of the efficacy and safety of the hexadentate phenolic aminocarboxylate iron chelator N, N*-bis(2-hydroxybenzyl) ethylenediamine-N, N*-diacetic acid monosodium salt (NaHBED) for the treatment of both chronic transfusional iron overload and acute iron poisoning. We examined the effect of route of administration by giving equimolar amounts of NaHBED an...

To prevent side effects of excessive accumulation of iron in the body, chelation therapy is recommended in transfusion-dependent patients. The reaction between deferiprone and iron to form a complex red substance can be described as 3 molecules of the chelator, deferiprone, reacting with a molecule of iron. However, the actual mechanism of the deferiprone-iron binding reaction is not well under...

Chronic disease has increased in the past several decades, and environmental pollutants have been implicated. The magnitude and variety of diseases may indicate the malfunctioning of some basic mechanisms underlying human health. Environmental pollutants demonstrate a capability to complex iron through electronegative functional groups containing oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur. Cellular exposure t...

Due to improvements in transfusion therapy in beta-thalassemia major patients, transfusional hemosiderosis has now become the major cause of late morbidity and mortality in them. In India and other developing countries, iron chelation therapy is still not strictly adhered to in these children, mostly due to financial constraints. An orally effective and cheap iron chelator is the need of the ho...

ABSTRACT Background: Tumor cells exhibit an increased requirement for iron to support their rapid proliferation. Deferoxamine (DFO), an iron chelator, has been reported to have anti-proliferative effects on cancer cells through induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. X-rays also induce apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. However, limited information is available regarding the effect of iron...

Deferasirox is a once-daily oral iron chelator with established dose-dependent efficacy in both adult and pediatric patients with transfusional iron overload. The clinical development program has demonstrated the efficacy of deferasirox for up to 4.5 years of treatment in patients with various underlying anemias, including beta-thalassemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, sickle cell disease, aplast...

The gram-negative oral and systemic pathogen Aggregatibacter (Actinobacillus) actinomycetemcomitans produces a leukotoxin (LtxA) that is a member of the RTX (repeats in toxin) family of secreted bacterial toxins. We have recently shown that LtxA has the ability to lyse erythrocytes, which results in a beta-hemolytic phenotype on Columbia blood agar. To determine if LtxA is regulated by iron, we...

Deferasirox is an orally effective iron (Fe) chelator currently used for the treatment of iron-overload disease and has been implemented as an alternative to the gold standard chelator, desferrioxamine (DFO). Earlier studies demonstrated that DFO exhibits anticancer activity due to its ability to deplete cancer cells of iron. In this investigation, we examined the in vitro and in vivo activity ...