Role of Dcytb in dietary iron absorption

铁是我们身体所必需的一种营养物质，它能制造红细胞和参与肌肉能量生产的酶。缺铁的饮食会导致贫血（红细胞中缺乏血红蛋白）和能量代谢的变化，导致疲劳和疲劳。据世卫组织估计，缺铁性贫血影响着全世界数百万人。另一方面，过多的铁也会造成健康问题，比如在血色素沉着症中，从饮食中吸收了过多的铁，导致铁在肝脏、心脏和胰腺等组织中积累。过量的铁对细胞有毒，造成器官损伤。因此，从饮食中吸收铁必须严格控制。在过去的几年里，医学的进步已经确定了胃肠道中表达的几种蛋白质，这些蛋白质负责膳食铁的吸收。这些蛋白质受人体铁储备的调节，这样我们就能从饮食中吸收适量的铁。我们的工作旨在研究其中一种蛋白质（十二指肠细胞色素b的Dcytb）。通过研究失去Dcytb基因的小鼠对铁的吸收，我们将增加对一种必需营养素吸收的理解。

Iron is an essential nutrient required by our bodies to make red blood cells and enzymes involved in energy production in our muscles. Eating a diet poor in iron leads to anaemia (lack of haemoglobin in red blood cells) and changes in energy metabolism leading to tiredness and fatigue. It is estimated by WHO that iron deficient anaemia affects millions of people worldwide. On the other hand, too much iron is also a health problem as in the disease haemochromatosis, where too much iron is absorbed from the diet leading to iron accumulation in tissues including the liver, heart and pancreas. Excess iron is toxic to cells causing organ damage. Therefore iron absorption from the diet must be tightly controlled. Over the past few years medical advances have identified several proteins expressed in the gastrointestinal tract that are responsible for absorption of dietary iron. These proteins are regulated by the body's iron stores so that we absorb the correct amount of iron from our diet. Our work aims to study one of these proteins (named Dcytb for duodenal cytochrome b). By studying iron absorption in mice in which the Dcytb gene has been lost we will increase our understanding of absorption of an essential nutrient.