WikiBiomeThe human microbiome encyclopediaRanked matches across titles, topics, categories, and article introductions, filtered to defense.
Autoimmunity occurs when the immune system attacks the body's own tissues. What has emerged over the past two decades is that the gut microbiome is not merely associated with autoimmune disease -- it is a mechanistic driver of immune tolerance breakdown. Metals add a se…
The primary intracellular iron storage protein, capable of sequestering up to 4,500 iron atoms in a single molecule as a mineralized ferric oxyhydroxide core. Ferritin is one of the most elegant solutions evolution has produced for the iron paradox: iron is essential fo…
The only known cellular iron exporter in mammals. Encoded by the SLC40A1 gene, ferroportin (FPN) sits on the basolateral membrane of enterocytes, the surface of macrophages, and the membrane of hepatocytes, controlling the flow of iron from these cells into the bloodstr…
The master regulator of systemic iron homeostasis. Hepcidin is a 25-amino-acid peptide hormone produced primarily by hepatocytes that controls iron absorption, recycling, and distribution by binding to and degrading ferroportin (SLC40A1/FPN) -- the only known cellular i…