Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P02794 (ferritin)
 17,525 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Rare cases of hemochromatosis have been reported in patients who underwent prolonged oral iron therapy for hemolytic anemia or prolonged self-treatment with iron pills. A proportionately large segment of the South African Bantu tribe, who ingest large quantities of an alcoholic beverage brewed in iron pots, are found to have the disease. Reports of health fadists developing hemochromatosis due to excessive dietary iron intake, however, are extremely rare. This report presents clinical considerations and pathologic findings in a compulsive health fadist who consumed large numbers of vitamins containing iron. Clinical findings included the development and progression of cirrhosis of the liver, bronzing of the skin, and diabetes mellitus, all consistent with a diagnosis of hemochromatosis. Light microscopy of liver biopsies taken late in the course of the disease revealed a massive buildup of iron in the hepatocytes, less in the Kupffer cells, and sparse deposition in the epithelial cells of the bile duct. Minimal periportal fibrosis was noted. Electron microscopy showed numerous pleomorphic siderosomes with varying degrees of crystallization and ferritin attached at uniform intervals to the membranes of residual bodies. Abundant free ferritin was observed in most cells. The aggregated and membrane-associated ferritin was verified by non-dispersive x-ray analysis. An additional finding, noted only by electron microscopy, was the presence of many fat-storing cells of Ito, which are thought to be involved in the onset of fibrosis.
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PMID:Hemochromatosis caused by excessive vitamin iron intake. 47 11

Purified tissue ferritins isolated from Bantu subjects with gross haemosiderosis, from a patient with idiopathic haemochromatosis (HC) treated by phlebotomy, and from rats with experimental iron overload were studied in order to determine the significance of the abnormality previously demonstrated in tissue isoferritins in patients with IHC. The isoferrin profile of the tissues from the Bantu subjects and the iron-loaded rats showed a similar abnormality to that previously found in patients with untreated IHC--that is, an abnormally uniform distribution of iron-containing isoferritins with an increase in the more basic isoferritins and an apparent absence of the more acidic ones. In contrast, tissues from the patient with treated IHC, who was iron depleted at the time of death, showed the normal organ-specific isoferritin distribution. These findings strongly suggest that the abnormal distribution of tissue isoferritins in IHC is an acquired phenomenon and unlikely to be related to an underlying genetic defect in ferritin or iron metabolism.
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PMID:Alterations in tissue ferritins in iron storage disorders. 119 19