2024-02-29 05:45:02
A team of researchers from Inserm in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) has taken a new step in understanding iron metabolism. The results obtained following seven years of work pave the way for improving the treatment of anemia.
The presence of iron in the body is essential, starting with the transport of oxygen by red blood cells. Chronic fatigue, shortness of breath, failing immune system… For patients suffering from a deficiency, carrying out daily tasks can become extremely complicated. Excess iron is also toxic to the body, potentially leading to organ failure such as the liver, pancreas and heart.
Clear, “between iron intake and iron needs, the balance must be in balanceexplains researcher Léon Kautz. And, this balance is maintained by a hormone produced by the liver, hepcidin.“
Inserm researcher at the digestive health research institute in Toulouse, Léon Kautz has been carrying out work for more than ten years on this regulatory hormone and proteins which in a certain way take control when this one is faulty.
After initial results in 2014, the Inserm team has just completed seven years of research with the identification of a second protein, playing a major role in iron metabolism.
In the case of anemia caused by hemorrhage or the destruction of red blood cells during an infection, the body will seek to respond quickly to the lack of red blood cells by increasing their production, which requires greater iron intake. To do this, the synthesis of hepcidin must be reduced.
Hepcidin is to iron metabolism, what insulin is to sugar.
Léon Kautz, Inserm researcher
For the team of researchers, “we were looking for the missing link that allows us to reduce hepcidin to bring in more iron until the body has regained a normal number of red blood cells and satisfactory oxygen saturation“. And it has therefore just validated the fact that a second protein, present in the body, is capable of this.
The protein was produced in the laboratory and its effects validated on mice. Results that Léon Kautz would now like to confirm in patients suffering from different pathologies to, ultimately, “refine new treatments“.
“We can imagine developing molecules that will perform a function similar to the protein called FGL1 or developing small fragments of it and administering them to patients.“, explains Léon Kautz. This would help relieve anemia associated with chronic inflammatory diseases, certain infections and certain cancers.
Conversely, the team also established that neutralizing this same protein made it possible to prevent excess iron, a factor in significant mortality in patients suffering from genetic diseases impacting their production of red blood cells.
But the implementation of new treatments is a completely different and long process which requires the support of an industrialist capable of developing the production of molecules. Then, clinical trials must be set up. And this requires collaboration between hospitals, pharmaceutical industries and researchers.
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