Hemochromatosis, iron-loading anemia, and SMAD

摘要

In this issue of Blood, Wang et al show that SMAD1 and SMAD5 act cooperatively to increase hepatic hepcidin expression in response to iron-mediated bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling, and they provide evidence that erythroferrone produced by bone marrow progenitors may suppress hepatic hepcidin expression by inhibiting these same factors (see figure).(1)