title: Disruption of iron homeostasis and resultant health effects upon exposure to various environmental pollutants: A critical review.
abstract: Environmental pollution has become one of the greatest problems in the world, and the concerns about environmental pollutants released by human activities from agriculture and industrial production have been continuously increasing. Although intense efforts have been made to understand the health effects of environmental pollutants, most studies have only focused on direct toxic effects and failed to simultaneously evaluate the long-term adaptive, compensatory and secondary impacts on health. Burgeoning evidence suggests that environmental pollutants may directly or indirectly give rise to disordered element homeostasis, such as for iron. It is crucially important to maintain concerted cellular and systemic iron metabolism. Otherwise, disordered iron metabolism would lead to cytotoxicity and increased risk for various diseases, including cancers. Thus, study on the effects of environmental pollutants upon iron homeostasis is urgently needed. In this review, we recapitulate the available findings on the direct or indirect impacts of environmental pollutants, including persistent organic pollutants (POPs), heavy metals and pesticides, on iron homeostasis and associated adverse health problems. In view of the unanswered questions, more efforts are warranted to investigate the disruptive effects of environmental pollutants on iron homeostasis and consequent toxicities.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Electronic address: biogwl@126.com.
authors.forename: Wenli
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Electronic address: sdzhangjie1989@163.com.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
authors.forename: Wenjun
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Electronic address: mingxu@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Electronic address: sjliu@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Sijin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*; D006706:Homeostasis / Q000187:drug effects*; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000378:metabolism*; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000633:toxicity*; D010575:Pesticides / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D019216:Metals, Heavy; D010575:Pesticides; D007501:Iron
keywords: Ferroportin; Heavy metals; Hepcidin; Iron diseases; Iron homeostasis; Organophosphate pesticides; Persistent organic pollutants