The effects of the iron chelator desferrioxamine (DFx) on liver iron accumulation, malondialdehyde (MDA) production, porphyrin accumulation and uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase (URO-D; EC 4.1.1.37) activity were investigated over a period of 14 weeks in C57BL/10 mice, made porphyric by the administration of hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and iron-dextran (Imferon, IMF) or IMF alone. In addition, we meas...

Oxidative damage to nuclear DNA is known to involve site-specific Fenton-type chemistry catalysed by redox-active iron or copper in the immediate vicinity of DNA. However, the presence of transition metals in the nucleus has not been shown convincingly. Recently, it was proposed that a major part of the cellular pool of loose iron is confined within the acidic vacuolar compartment [Yu, Persson,...

The intracellular facultative bacteria Piscirickettsia salmonis is one of the most important pathogens of the Chilean aquaculture. However, there is a lack of information regarding the whole genomic transcriptional response according to different extracellular environments. We used next generation sequencing (NGS) of RNA (RNA-seq) to study the whole transcriptome of an isolate of P. salmonis (F...

An 84-year-old man without any signifi cant past medical history (PMH) was admitted for anemia and weight loss. Th ere was no history of gastrointestinal bleeding or iron supplement use. Physical examination was benign except for pallor. His labs showed: hemoglobin 6.8 (11.0-15.6) g/dL, serum iron 30 (65-175) μg/dL, total iron binding capacity 141 (179-378) μg/dL, ferritin 416 (22-275) ng/dL, a...

Red cell free erythrocyte porphyrin and serum ferritin determinations were performed on capillary blood specimens from 63 healthy infants weighing 2500 g or less at birth, during the first week of life, and, from 44 of them, again at 8-10 weeks. Free erythrocyte porphyrin values were high both at 3-7 days (mean 156 microgram/100 ml RBC) and at 8-10 weeks (mean 128 microgram/100 ml RBC). The res...

Iron overload is increasingly being connected to insulin resistance in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) patients. Free iron causes the assembly of reactive oxygen species that invariably steer the body's homeostasis towards oxidative stress-mediated diabetic complications. This study aims to assess the serum iron, total iron binding capacity (TIBC), and percentage transferrin saturation (Tsat) o...

A few hours after administering iron to rats, liver ferritin synthesis increases several fold. However, Northern blot analysis with cDNA probes for ferritin light (L) and heavy (H) subunit mRNAs failed to show an increase in total population of either messenger. Cytoplasmic distribution of ferritin messages was therefore investigated in control and iron administered rats killed at 3.5 hours. Th...

Synovial iron deposition associated with rheumatoid disease may result in the production of highly reactive oxygen free radicals, leading to tissue damage. This chain of events can be interrupted by iron chelation. Families of strong iron (III) chelators have been tested for their iron scavenging properties in vitro and their effects assessed in vivo using a rat model of inflammation. All the c...

The activities and subcellular distribution of enzymes implicated in the protection of cells from free-radical mediated damage were determined in liver biopsy specimens from control and iron-overloaded patients. 2. There was a small but insignificant decrease in the activity of glutathione reductase in patients with secondary iron overload due to multiple transfusion therapy for thalassaemia ma...

The facile ability of iron to gain and lose electrons has made iron an important participant in a wide variety of biochemical reactions. Binding of ligands to iron modifies its redox potential, thereby permitting iron to transfer electrons with greater or lesser facility. The ability to transfer electrons, coupled with its abundance, as iron is the fourth most abundant mineral in the earth's cr...