Kostas Pantopoulos
Professor
Research Associate:
Carine Fillebeen
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Post-doctoral fellow:
Apostolos Galaris (2024-)
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Graduate students:
Sham Abdrabh (2024-)
Siqi Liu (2024-)
Taniya Rajeshkumar Thakkar (2024-)
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Recent graduates:
Wen Gu (graduated with PhD in 2024)
Sabrina Sgro (graduated with MSc in 2024)
Sofiya Tsyplenkova (graduated with MSc in 2024)
Yupeng Li (graduated with MSc in 2024)
Edouard Charlebois (graduated with PhD in 2023)
Angeliki Katsarou (completed postdoctoral training in 2022)
The Pantopoulos laboratory was established in 1999. It is located at the Lady Davis Institute and focuses on the study of iron metabolism in health and disease. Research is supported by extramural funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Council for Science and Engineering of Canada (NSERC) and other funding agencies.
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Snapshot
Iron homeostasis is critical for health and its disruption leads to disease. Thus, iron-deficiency is the most prevalent medical condition affecting one quarter of the world鈥檚 population, while iron overload is a hallmark of inherited disorders such as hereditary hemochromatosis or thalassemia. Deregulation of iron metabolism also occurs in common inflammatory, infectious, metabolic, cardiovascular and neurological diseases, as well as in cancer. The long-term goals of our research program are to:
- Study mechanisms of cellular and systemic iron homeostasis.
- Understand how iron homeostasis is disrupted under pathological conditions.
- Develop new therapies for the treatment of iron-related disorders.
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Ongoing projects in the laboratory focus on following specific areas:
- Study mechanisms for iron sensing and iron traffic in the liver, which result in activation of the iron hormone hepcidin, and understand pathophysiological implications of hepcidin deregulation. To this end, we are utilizing mice with tissue-specific disruption of transferrin receptor 1 (Tfr1), the cellular iron gate, and Hjv-/- mice with disruption of hemojuvelin (Hjv), an upstream regulator of hepcidin.
- Explore regulatory connections between iron and intermediary metabolism. We are utilizing mouse models with defective iron homeostasis, such as Irp1-/- or hepatocyte-specific Tfr1-/- mice, and we are analyzing their responses to metabolic challenges.
- Investigate iron metabolism in cancer. We are utilizing mouse models with tissue-specific or global disruption of iron metabolism proteins (Tfr1, Hjv, IRP1 or IRP2) to study implications in carcinogenesis and tumor growth.
Complete list of publications:
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Selected publications during 2019-2024:
- Tsyplenkova, S., Charlebois, E., Fillebeen, C. and Pantopoulos, K. (2024) Excess of circulating apo-transferrin enhances dietary iron absorption in mice, Blood, in press, doi: 10.1182/blood.2023022916
- Sgro, S., Wagner, J., Fillebeen, C. and Pantopoulos, K. (2024) Hjv-/- mice in either C57BL/6 or AKR genetic background do not develop spontaneous liver fibrosis, BBA Mol. Cell. Res., 1871, 119747.
- Pantopoulos, K. (2023) Macrophage checkpoint for iron absorption, Blood, 141, 2791-2793.
- Charlebois, E., Fillebeen, C., Presley, J., Cagnone, G., Lisi, V., Lavall茅e, V.-P., Joyal, J.-S. and Pantopoulos, K. (2023) Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells induce BMP6 expression in response to non-transferrin bound iron, Blood, 141, 271-284; editorial in pages 214-216.
- Charlebois, E., Fillebeen, C., Katsarou, A., Rabinovich, A., Wisniewski, K., Venkataramani, V., Michalke, B., Velentza, A. and Pantopoulos, K. (2022) A crosstalk between hepcidin and the IRE/IRP pathways controls ferroportin expression and determines serum iron levels in mice, eLife, 11, e81332.