The First Affiliated Hospital, School of Public Health, Institute of Translational Medicine, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
Department of Nutrition and Health, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Food Nutrition and Human Health, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
Blood. 2020 Aug 6;136(6):726-739. doi: 10.1182/blood.2019002907.
Although the serum-abundant metal-binding protein transferrin (encoded by the Trf gene) is synthesized primarily in the liver, its function in the liver is largely unknown. Here, we generated hepatocyte-specific Trf knockout mice (Trf-LKO), which are viable and fertile but have impaired erythropoiesis and altered iron metabolism. Moreover, feeding Trf-LKO mice a high-iron diet increased their susceptibility to developing ferroptosis-induced liver fibrosis. Importantly, we found that treating Trf-LKO mice with the ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin-1 potently rescued liver fibrosis induced by either high dietary iron or carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) injections. In addition, deleting hepatic Slc39a14 expression in Trf-LKO mice significantly reduced hepatic iron accumulation, thereby reducing ferroptosis-mediated liver fibrosis induced by either a high-iron diet or CCl4 injections. Finally, we found that patients with liver cirrhosis have significantly lower levels of serum transferrin and hepatic transferrin, as well as higher levels of hepatic iron and lipid peroxidation, compared with healthy control subjects. Taken together, these data indicate that hepatic transferrin plays a protective role in maintaining liver function, providing a possible therapeutic target for preventing ferroptosis-induced liver fibrosis.
虽然血清丰富的金属结合蛋白转铁蛋白(由 Trf 基因编码)主要在肝脏中合成,但它在肝脏中的功能在很大程度上是未知的。在这里,我们生成了肝细胞特异性 Trf 敲除小鼠(Trf-LKO),它们具有活力和生育能力,但红细胞生成受损且铁代谢改变。此外,用高铁饮食喂养 Trf-LKO 小鼠会增加其发生铁死亡诱导的肝纤维化的易感性。重要的是,我们发现用铁死亡抑制剂 ferrostatin-1 治疗 Trf-LKO 小鼠可以有效地挽救由高膳食铁或四氯化碳(CCl4)注射引起的肝纤维化。此外,在 Trf-LKO 小鼠中敲除肝脏 Slc39a14 的表达显著减少了肝铁积累,从而减少了由高铁饮食或 CCl4 注射引起的铁死亡介导的肝纤维化。最后,我们发现与健康对照组相比,肝硬化患者的血清转铁蛋白和肝转铁蛋白水平显著降低,而肝铁和脂质过氧化水平显著升高。综上所述,这些数据表明肝脏转铁蛋白在维持肝功能方面发挥保护作用,为预防铁死亡诱导的肝纤维化提供了一个可能的治疗靶点。
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