Journal
JOURNAL OF MEDICAL GENETICS
Volume 48, Issue 9, Pages 629-634Publisher
BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1136/jmedgenet-2011-100061
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Compagnia San Paolo Torino
- Telethon Foundation Onlus, Rome [GGP080892008]
- Regione Lombardia Sal-11 [ID 17389]
- EU [LSHM-CT-2006-037296 EURIRON]
- Progetto Finalizzato Sanita [RF-FSR-2007-647201]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Background Hepcidin is the main regulator of iron homeostasis: inappropriate production of hepcidin results in iron overload or iron deficiency and anaemia. Aims To study variation of serum hepcidin concentration in a normal population. Results Hepcidin showed age and sex dependent variations that correlated with ferritin but not with serum iron and transferrin saturation. The size of the study population was underpowered to find genome wide significant associations with hepcidin concentrations but it allowed to show that association with serum iron, transferrin saturation and erythrocyte traits of common DNA variants in HFE (rs1800562) and TMPRSS6 (rs855791) genes is not exclusively dependent on hepcidin values. When multiple interactions between environmental factors, the iron parameters and hepcidin were taken into account, the HFE variant, and to lesser extent the TMPRSS6 variant, were associated with ferritin and with hepcidin normalised to ferritin (the hepcidin/ferritin ratio). Conclusions The results suggest a mutual control of serum hepcidin and ferritin concentrations, a mechanism relevant to the pathophysiology of HFE haemochromatosis, and demonstrate that the HFE rs1800562 C282Y variant exerts a direct pleiotropic effect on the iron parameters, in part independent of hepcidin.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available