Department of Pathogenic Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
Department of Clinical Laboratory, Zibo Central Hospital, Zibo, China.
Rev Med Virol. 2024 Mar;34(2):e2531. doi: 10.1002/rmv.2531.
As an indispensable trace element, iron is essential for many biological processes. Increasing evidence has shown that virus infection can perturb iron metabolism and play a role in the occurrence and development of viral infection-related diseases. Ferritin plays a crucial role in maintaining the body's iron homoeostasis. It is an important protein to stabilise the iron balance in cells. Ferritin is a 24-mer hollow iron storage protein composed of two subunits: ferritin heavy chain and ferritin light chain. It was reported that ferritin is not only an intra-cellular iron storage protein, but also a pathogenic mediator that enhances the inflammatory process and stimulates the further inflammatory pathway, which is a key member of the vicious pathogenic cycle to perpetuate. Ferritin exerts immuno-suppressive and pro-inflammatory functions during viral infection. In this review, we describe in detail the basic information of ferritin in the first section, including its structural features, the regulation of ferritin. In the second part, we focus on the role of ferritin in viral infection-related diseases and the molecular mechanisms by which viral infection regulates ferritin. The last section briefly outlines the potential of ferritin in antiviral therapy. Given the importance of iron and viral infection, understanding the role of ferritin during viral infection helps us understand the relationship between iron metabolic dysfunction and viral infection, which provides a new direction for the development of antiviral therapeutic drugs.
作为一种不可或缺的微量元素，铁对于许多生物过程都是必不可少的。越来越多的证据表明，病毒感染可以扰乱铁代谢，并在病毒感染相关疾病的发生和发展中发挥作用。
铁蛋白在维持体内铁稳态方面起着至关重要的作用。它是稳定细胞内铁平衡的重要蛋白。铁蛋白是由两个亚基组成的 24 聚体空铁储存蛋白：铁蛋白重链和铁蛋白轻链。有报道称，铁蛋白不仅是一种细胞内铁储存蛋白，还是一种促进炎症过程和刺激进一步炎症途径的致病介质，是使致病循环永久持续的关键成员。铁蛋白在病毒感染期间发挥免疫抑制和促炎作用。
在这篇综述中，我们在第一节详细描述了铁蛋白的基本信息，包括其结构特征和铁蛋白的调节。在第二部分，我们重点介绍了铁蛋白在病毒感染相关疾病中的作用以及病毒感染调节铁蛋白的分子机制。最后一节简要概述了铁蛋白在抗病毒治疗中的潜力。鉴于铁和病毒感染的重要性，了解铁蛋白在病毒感染期间的作用有助于我们理解铁代谢功能障碍与病毒感染之间的关系，为开发抗病毒治疗药物提供了新的方向。
