By Michael McFall, Staff Writer

Anemia and other iron-related diseases are now easier to diagnose, thanks in part to a study by U scientists.

The scientists developed a quick test that measures the amount of hepcidin in a person’s blood. Hepcidin is a hormone produced in the liver that binds with ferroportin, a protein that takes iron in and out of cells.

“Arthritis, cancer (and) lots of things can affect hepcidin levels,” said Jerry Kaplan, a U professor of pathology and the study’s senior author.

The ability to measure hepcidin has important implications for the diagnosis of iron-related disorders, such as anemia. Hepcidin levels also spike during some bacterial infections.

The new test measures hepcidin levels and variations in the hormone due to mutations. This allows doctors to distinguish anemia and iron-related diseases that are caused by abnormalities in a body’s hepcidin, said pathology professor Diane Ward.

“It is hard to diagnose the anemia of chronic disease,” Kaplan said. “Having an assay for hepcidin would make it much easier and it would also help in diagnosing iron overload diseases.”

Scientists from the U and the University of California, Los Angeles identified the specific sites where hepcidin binds to ferroportin, a protein on the outside of a cell that transports iron in and out of the cell.

Scientists tested the relationship between hepcidin and ferroportin to measure the former iron levels in the body. An excess of hepcidin in the blood can result in anemia, and a deficiency of hepcidin causes a buildup of iron that is damaging to body organs.

In order to test hepcidin levels and find out how much iron the body is regulating, plasma is mixed with hepcidin that has been attached to radioactive beads. If the body has high levels of hepcidin, then the blood sample has low radioactivity, and vice versa, Kaplan said.

The study also produced insight into the evolution of vertebrates. In most animals, hepcidin no longer binds to ferroportin with temperatures below 14 degrees Celsius, and this was thought to be true across the biological board.

However, Kaplan and his team looked at the hepcidin levels in fish, such as the brown trout from the Middle Provo River. The fish that live in constant cold temperatures still bind hepcidin to ferroportin. The scientists discovered that fish developed multiple kinds of hepcidin genes to deal with specific tasks, while humans still have only one kind of hepcidin gene for all situations.

The new test can be used to diagnose almost any vertebrate, not only humans. However, the assay is not ready for commercialization yet, said Ivana De Domenico, another author of the study. De Domenico came up with the idea of testing the hepcidin as a competition assay inside a test tube.

“It’s not ready yet. But as soon as we have it, it can be used for so many different things,” she said.

[email protected]