• Daniel Vyoral and Jiri Petrak BIOCEV, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague, Czechia; Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, Prague, Czechia..
• Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, Prague, Czechia; Institute of Pathological Physiology, First Faculty of Medicine,Charles University, Prague, Czechia. Electronic address: vyoral@uhkt.cz.
• Pharmacol. Res. 2017 Jan 1; 115: 242-254.

AbstractIron is an essential biogenic element for both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. In humans iron is present in hundreds of different metalloproteins. The peptide hormone hepcidin serves as a master regulator of iron homeostasis on the level of single cells and whole organism - by altering cell surface expression of cellular iron exporter - protein ferroportin. Altered levels of extracellular hepcidin lead to pathological conditions such as hemochromatosis and iron loading or, on the other side, iron restrictive anemias. Therapeutic modulation of hepcidin is a new and promising approach to treatment of these conditions. In this review, a summary of the current knowledge of hepcidin function, regulation and pathological involvements are provided, followed by a section covering the therapeutic potential of hepcidin and the current strategies how to modulate its levels and biological functions for therapeutic purposes.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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