Dynamics of Iron Homeostasis in Health and Disease: Molecular Mechanisms and Methods for Iron Determination

Abstract

Iron is a versatile trace metal, indispensable for the survival of all living organisms. Despite its crucial role in vital biological processes, exceeded iron levels can be harmful for cellular and organismal homeostasis, due to iron’s involvement in the generation of toxic hydroxyl radicals. As such, maintaining balanced iron levels is highly required in order for the organisms to avoid iron toxicity and at the same time preserve iron-dependent processes. This is achieved by the tight coordination of intricate systemic, cellular and subcellular mechanisms for iron absorption, excretion, utilization and storage. Those mechanisms decline during ageing, as well as in multiple human pathologies, leading to iron overload or deprivation, and eventually to death. To gain insight into how perturbations in iron homeostasis lead to disease, it is of great importance to use efficient methods for iron detection in distinct biological samples. Towards this direction, several biochemical and biophysical methods have been developed for the determination of iron and iron-containing compounds.