Transferrins iron release

When we consider the transfer of iron between ferritin and transferrin in vivo, there is much less known. Any mechanism that seeks to explain this process must take account of the following facts iron must be presented to ferritin in the Fe2+ form and must be mobilized in this form. This necessitates a reduction step to convert transferrin iron to the divalent form, and its transport into the cell chelated to a suitable carrier. It has been reported that transferrin iron release to a membrane... 

Figure 11.1 Schematic representation of iron uptake mechanisms, (a) The transferrin-mediated pathway in animals involves receptor-mediated endocytosis of diferric transferrin (Tf), release of iron at the lower pH of the endocytic vesicle and recycling of apoTf. (b) The mechanism in H. influenzae involves extraction of iron from Tf at outer membrane receptors and transport to the inner membrane permease system by a periplasmic ferric binding protein (Fbp). From Baker, 1997. Reproduced by permission of Nature Publishing Group.

Wolz, C., Hohloch, K., Ocaktan, A., Poole, K., Evans, R. W., Rochel, N., Albrecht-Gary, A.-M., Abdallah, M. A. and Doering, G. (1994). Iron release from transferrin by pyoverdin and elastase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Infect. Immunol., 62, 4021 -027. 

Mason, A.B., Halbrooks, P.J., James, N.G., Connolly, S.A., Larouche, J.R., Smith, V.C., MacGillivray, R.T.A. and Chasteen, N.D. (2005) Mutational analysis of C-lobe ligands of human serum Transferrin insights into the mechanism of iron release, Biochemistry, 44, 8013-8021. 

MacGillivray, R.T., Moore, S.A., Chen, J., Anderson, B.F., Baker, H., Luo, Y., Bewley, M., Smith, C.A., Murphy, M.E., Wang, Y., Mason, A.B., Woodworth, R.C., Brayer, G.D. and Baker, E.N. (1998) Two high-resolution crystal structures of the recombinant N-lobe of human transferrin reveal a structural change implicated in iron release, Biochemistry, 37, 7919-7928. 

Iron-gluconate complexes are sufficiently stable not to cause iron toxicity (in contrast to Fe aq, Fe aq, and complexes of low stability) and are safe and effective in hemodialysis. " There is information on iron transfer between gluconate and transferrin. Dithionite releases Fe + from gluconate. ... 

The molecular details of the physiologically critical step of iron release from serum transferrin are unclear. The anion may play an important role in this process by providing a handle for modulating the affinity of transferrin for iron. If the anion were to be removed (perhaps by protonation followed by dissociation), then the binding of iron to transferrin would be greatly weakened, facilitating dissociation of the metal. It seems... 

Absorption, transport, and storage of iron. Intestinal epithelial cells actively absorb inorganic iron and heme iron (H). Ferrous iron that is absorbed or released from absorbed heme iron in the intestine (1) is actively transported into the blood or complexed with apoferritin (AF) and stored as ferritin (F). In the blood, iron is transported by transferrin (Tf) to erythroid precursors in the bone marrow for synthesis of hemoglobin (Hgb) (2) or to hepatocytes for storage as ferritin (3). The transferrin-iron complexes bind to transferrin receptors (TfR) in erythroid precursors and hepatocytes and are internalized. After release of the iron, the TfR-Tf complex is recycled to the plasma membrane and Tf is released. Macrophages that phagocytize senescent erythrocytes (RBC) reclaim the iron from the RBC hemoglobin and either export it or store it as ferritin (4). Hepatocytes use several mechanisms to... 

The majority of body iron is not chelatable (iron from cytochromes and hemoglobin). There are two major pools of chelatable iron by DFO (19). The first is that delivered from the breakdown of red cells by macrophages. DFO competes with transferrin for iron released from macrophages. DFO will also compete with other plasma proteins for this iron, when transferrin becomes saturated in iron overload. The quantity of chelatable iron from this turnover is 20mg/day in healthy individuals and iron chelated from this pool is excreted in the urine (19). The second major pool of iron available to DFO is derived from the breakdown of ferritin and hemosiderin. The ferritin is catabolized every 72 hours in hepatocytes, predominantly within lysosomes (I). DFO can chelate iron that remains within lysosomes shortly after ferritin catabolism or once this iron reaches a dynamic, transiently chelatable, cytosolic low-molecular-weight iron pool (20). Cellular iron status, the rate of uptake of exogenous iron, and the rate of ferritin catabolism are influent on the level of a labile iron pool (21). Excess ferritin and... 

Mechanism and Regulation of Iron Release from Transferrin to Reticulocytes... 

Transferrin, which is the major iron-transport protein, holds two Fe(III) atoms per molecule, and it accounts for nearly all the iron in plasma, where its concentration is usually 2-5x 10-5 M [149]. In cells and tissues, the iron release from transferrin would be controlled by local pH variations in the presence of Fe(III) chelators [149]. Conflicting reports have been published on the ability of superoxide to initiate transferrin-promoted Fenton reactions [154]. 

The two sites also differ in their pH stability towards iron release. Experiments on serum transferrin showed that one site loses iron at a pH near 6.0, and the other at a pH nearer 5.0 (203, 204), giving a distinctly biphasic pH-induced release profile (Fig. 28). The acid-stable A site was later shown to be the C-terminal site (202). It is this differential response to pH, together with kinetic effects (below), that enables N-terminal and C-terminal monoferric transferrins to be prepared (200). Although the N-terminal site is more labile, both kinetically and to acid, the reasons are not necessarily the same the acid stability may depend on the protonation of specific residues (Section V.B) and is likely to differ somewhat from one transferrin to another in response to sequence changes. The biphasic acid-induced release of iron seen for transferrin is not shared by lactoferrin. Although biphasic release from lactoferrin, in the presence at EDTA, has been reported (205), under most conditions both sites release iron essentially together at a pH(2.5-4.0) several units lower than that for transferrin (Fig. 28). 

Fig. 28. The pH dependence of iron release from human serum transferrin (Tf), human lactoferrin (Lf), and the recombinant N-terminal half-molecule of human lactoferrin (Lfm). Also shown is a plot (dashed line) for the release of cerium from Ce4+-substituted lactoferrin, demonstrating the increased difference between the two sites for metal ions other than Fe3+.

Many studies have noted weak cooperativity between the sites during iron release (3). One recent analysis used mixed-metal transferrins, with kinetically inert Co3+ in one site and Fe3+ in the other (221,224). With pyrophosphate, release of iron from the C-site was accelerated by the presence of a metal in the N-site, but no corresponding effect was seen for iron release from the N-site. The cooperative effects were also weaker and somewhat different for different chelators (221). 

Fig. 30. Residues at the back of the iron site, near the hinge region, that may be implicated in the stimulation or modulation of iron release. The interactions present in human lactoferrin and rabbit transferrin are compared. Where the conformations are different, lactoferrin residues are shown with solid bonds, transferrin, with open bonds. Where the residues differ in identity or number, those for transferrin are in parentheses.

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