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Hepcidin: what every gastroenterologist should know

A P Walker¹, J Partridge¹, S K Srai², J S Dooley¹

¹ Centre for Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Royal Free and University College Medical School, University College London, London, UK
² Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Royal Free and University College Medical School, University College London, London, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr A P Walker
Centre for Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Royal Free and University College Medical School (UCL), Royal Free Campus, Rowland Hill St, London NW3 2PF, UK; a.walker{at}rfc.ucl.ac.uk

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The circulating peptide hepcidin is important in the normal response to iron overload, the pathogenesis of haemochromatosis, and possibly the anaemia of chronic disease

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Keywords: interleukin-6; hepcidin; iron absorption; hereditary haemochromatosis; anaemia of chronic disease

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In health, the body content of iron is maintained within fairly narrow limits to provide sufficient iron for synthesis of ferroproteins essential for oxygen transport and catalysis yet avoid the toxic effects of excess. Early experiments provided tantalising evidence for a humoral regulatory factor. Serum obtained from iron repleted rats inhibited iron absorption in normal rat duodenum.¹ For many years this putative factor remained elusive. However, recent studies indicate that a peptide hormone, hepcidin, may play a crucial regulatory role in normal iron homeostasis, haemochromatosis, and the anaemia of chronic disease.²

Hepcidin was identified not from studies of iron homeostasis but from investigation of novel antimicrobial peptides in body fluids. Krause and colleagues³ screened human blood ultrafiltrate (a source of the antimicrobial peptides defensins) for small cysteine rich peptides. A 25 amino acid peptide with a mass of 2.7 kDa was found, containing a remarkable eight disulphide bonded cysteine . . . [Full text of this article]

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• Murphy, A. T., Witcher, D. R., Luan, P., Wroblewski, V. J. (2007). Quantitation of hepcidin from human and mouse serum using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Blood 110: 1048-1054 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Leung, P S, Srai, S K, Mascarenhas, M, Churchill, L J, Debnam, E S (2005). Increased duodenal iron uptake and transfer in a rat model of chronic hypoxia is accompanied by reduced hepcidin expression. Gut 54: 1391-1395 [Abstract] [Full Text]