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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Quantitating Iron Transport Across the Mouse Placenta In Vivo Using Nonradioactive Iron Isotopes
Published on: May 10, 2022
Iron Imports. V. Transport of iron through the intestinal epithelium
Yuxiang Ma1, Mary Yeh, Kwo-Yih Yeh
1Feist-Weiller Cancer Center and Department of Medicine, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, 1501 Kings Highway, Shreveport, LA 71130, USA.
Abstract:
Iron absorption across the brush-border membrane requires divalent metal transporter 1 (DMT1), whereas ferroportin (FPN) and hephaestin are required for exit across the basolateral membrane. However, how iron passes across the enterocyte is poorly understood. Both chaperones and transcytosis have been postulated to account for intracellular iron transport. With iron feeding, DMT1 undergoes endocytosis and FPN translocates from the apical cytosol to the basolateral membrane. The fluorescent metallosensor calcein offered to the basolateral surface of enterocytes is found in endosomes in the apical compartment, and its fluorescence is quenched when iron is offered to the apical surface. These experiments are consistent with vesicular iron transport as a possible pathway for intracellular iron transport.
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