Iron as Therapeutic Target in Human Diseases
Raffaella Gozzelino,1 Maura Poli,2 and Paolo Arosio2,*
Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2019 Dec; 12(4): 178.
Published online 2019 Dec 5. doi: 10.3390/ph12040178
PMCID: PMC6958491
PMID: 31817314

Iron is essential for almost all organisms, being involved in oxygen transport, DNA synthesis, and respiration; however, it is also potentially toxic via the formation of free radicals. Thus, iron homeostasis is tightly controlled by mechanisms that have been partially elucidated. Numerous disorders have recently been linked to deregulation of iron homeostasis, leading iron metabolism to become an interesting therapeutic target for novel pharmacological treatments against these diseases. The targeting includes the hepcidin/ferroportin axis for the regulation of systemic iron homeostasis, the cytosolic machinery for the regulation of intracellular iron status and oxidative damage, proteins of iron metabolism such as ferritin and transferrin receptor, and the recently described form of programmed cell death named ferroptosis. Because of its tight link with anemia, iron metabolism has been mainly of interest in terms of the hematological pathologies, but, recently, clinicians have become aware of the importance of iron in non-hematological disorders, suggesting that iron could be a therapeutic target for various conditions. To verify whether this is the case and to try to gather together all the novel information in this developing field, we launched this issue in Pharmaceuticals, and we were glad to find that this attracted the attention of the 49 research groups that proposed papers. This result confirms the increasing importance of iron in various disorders.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6958491/

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