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Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay EMSA for the Study of RNA-Protein Interactions: The IRE/IRP Example
Published on: December 3, 2014
Irp2 regulates insulin production through iron-mediated Cdkal1-catalyzed tRNA modification
Maria C Ferreira Dos Santos1,2, Cole P Anderson2,3,4, Susanne Neschen5,6
1Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA.
Abstract:
Regulation of cellular iron homeostasis is crucial as both iron excess and deficiency cause hematological and neurodegenerative diseases. Here we show that mice lacking iron-regulatory protein 2 (Irp2), a regulator of cellular iron homeostasis, develop diabetes. Irp2 post-transcriptionally regulates the iron-uptake protein transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1) and the iron-storage protein ferritin, and dysregulation of these proteins due to Irp2 loss causes functional iron deficiency in β cells. This impairs Fe-S cluster biosynthesis, reducing the function of Cdkal1, an Fe-S cluster enzyme that catalyzes methylthiolation of t6A37 in tRNALysUUU to ms2t6A37. As a consequence, lysine codons in proinsulin are misread and proinsulin processing is impaired, reducing insulin content and secretion. Iron normalizes ms2t6A37 and proinsulin lysine incorporation, restoring insulin content and secretion in Irp2-/- β cells. These studies reveal a previously unidentified link between insulin processing and cellular iron deficiency that may have relevance to type 2 diabetes in humans.
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