Iron Acquisition and Transcriptional Regulation

The processes involved in iron acquisition, storage, and dispersal in eukaryotes and their regulation at many levels, focusing most on transcriptional control has been reported. Iron is an essential element for all eukaryotes. The facile ability of iron to gain and lose electrons permits its participation in a wide variety of oxidation-reduction reactions. Iron is the fourth most abundant element on earth but is not uniformly distributed. Iron uptake into vertebrates occurs primarily in the proximal portion of the intestine, the duodenum. Iron absorbed by the apical surface of the duodenal enterocyte is either stored within the enterocytes or exported from the enterocyte into plasma by iron transporters present on the basolateral surface. Iron acquisition is critical for all eukaryotes and shows exquisite regulation at multiple levels of gene expression.