Effects of Hfe-/- and dietary iron overload on gene expression in the liver and duodenum of mice. Mus musculus

Iron is an essential trace element whose absorption is usually tightly regulated in the duodenum. HFE-related hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) is characterized by abnormally low expression of the iron-regulatory hormone, hepcidin, which results in increased iron absorption. The liver is crucial for iron homeostasis as it is the main production site of hepcidin. The aim of this study was to explore and compare the genome-wide transcriptome response to Hfe deficiency and dietary iron overload in murine liver and duodenum. Overall design: C57BL/6 male mice were used following the next scheme: 3 Hfe knockout mice and 2 wild type mice as their controls; 3 mice with dietary iron overload and 2 mice fed a standard diet as their controls. 2 tissues were analyzed from all the described mice, liver and duodenum. As an exception, the duodenum samples of only 2 Hfe knockout mice, instead of 3, were used. This makes a total of 19 samples: 10 liver samples and 9 duodenum samples.