1. Role of Matriptase-2 (TMPRSS6) in Iron Metabolism
- Author
-
Pauline Lee
- Subjects
Paper ,TMPRSS6 ,Transcription, Genetic ,Iron ,Ferroportin ,SMAD ,Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic ,Substrate Specificity ,Hepcidin ,medicine ,Animals ,Homeostasis ,Humans ,Matriptase ,Hemojuvelin ,Regulation of gene expression ,Polymorphism, Genetic ,Anemia, Iron-Deficiency ,biology ,Serine Endopeptidases ,Membrane Proteins ,Hematology ,General Medicine ,Iron deficiency ,medicine.disease ,Biochemistry ,Mutation ,biology.protein - Abstract
Iron, an essential element for life, is regulated primarily at the level of uptake, storage, and transport in order to maintain sufficient availability for normal physiology. The key protein in iron homeostasis is a 25-amino-acid peptide, hepcidin, which modulates the amount of iron in the circulation by binding and promoting the degradation of the iron exporter ferroportin. Given the central importance of hepcidin, recent studies have focused on how iron is sensed and how the iron signal is transmitted to hepcidin. Mutations in a type II serine protease, matriptase-2/TMPRSS6, were recently identified to be associated with severe iron deficiency caused by inappropriately high levels of hepcidin expression. A key biologically relevant substrate for the proteolytic activity of matriptase-2/TMPRSS6 was found to be hemojuvelin, a cell surface protein that regulates hepcidin expression through a BMP/SMAD pathway. In this review, we discuss the putative role of matriptase-2/TMPRSS6 in iron homeostasis.
- Published
- 2009