Iron Homeostasis and Inflammatory Status in Mice Deficient for the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Regulator

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a frequent and lethal autosomal recessive disease caused by mutations in the gene encoding the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR). Patients with CF suffer from chronic infections and severe inflammation, which lead to progressive pulmonary and gut diseases. Recently, an expanding body of evidence has suggested that iron homeostasis was abnormal in CF with, in particular, systemic iron deficiency and iron sequestration in the epithelium airway. The molecular mechanisms responsible for iron dysregulation and the relationship with inflammation in CF are unknown.

We assessed the impact of CFTR deficiency on systemic and tissue iron homeostasis as well as inflammation in wildtype and CFTR knockout (KO) mice. First, in contrast to the systemic and intestinal inflammation we observed in the CFTR KO mice, we reported the absence of lung phenotype with regards to both inflammation and iron status. Second, we showed a significant decrease of plasma ferritin levels in the KO mice, as in CF patients, likely caused by a decrease in spleen ferritin levels. However, we measured unchanged plasma iron levels in the KO mice that may be explained by increased intestinal iron absorption.

These results indicate that in CF, the lung do not predominantly contributes to the systemic ferritin deficiency and we propose the spleen as the major organ responsible for hypoferritinemia in the KO mouse. These results should provide a better understanding of iron dysregulation in CF patients where treating or not iron deficiency remains a challenging question.