Cancer cell death induced by ferritins and the peculiar role of their labile iron pool.

Cancer cell death induced by ferritins and the peculiar role of their labile iron pool. Oncotarget. 2018 Jun 15;9(46):27974-27984 Authors: Cutrin JC, Alberti D, Bernacchioni C, Ciambellotti S, Turano P, Luchinat C, Crich SG, Aime S Abstract Cellular uptake of human H-ferritin loaded with 50 or 350 iron ions results in significant cytotoxicity on HeLa cells at submicromolar concentrations. Conversely, Horse Spleen Ferritin, that can be considered a model of L-cages, as it contains only about 10% of H subunits, even when loaded with 1000 iron ions, is toxic only at >1 order of magnitude higher protein concentrations. We propose here that the different cytotoxicity of the two ferritin cages originates from the presence in H-ferritin of a pool of non-biomineralized iron ions bound at the ferroxidase catalytic sites of H-ferritin subunits. This iron pool is readily released during the endosomal-mediated H-ferritin internalization. PMID: 29963255 [PubMed]
Source: Oncotarget - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: Oncotarget Source Type: research