Iron, Oxygen and the Pulmonary Circulation
Professor Peter Robbins, DPAG
Head of Department Seminar Series
Friday, 30 January 2015, 1pm to 1.30pm
Sherrington Large Lecture Theatre, Sherrington Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3PT
If you have a question about this talk, please contact Sarah Noujaim.
The pulmonary circulation is a special circulation that has to take the whole of the cardiac output. Arterial pressure is much lower than in the systemic circulation and it responds to low oxygen, or hypoxia, through vasoconstriction so as to match the blood supply to the gas supply within the lungs. This seminar will start with a consideration of the time course of the response to hypoxia. It will cover some of the genetic evidence implicating the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) pathway in generating the responses to hypoxia. It will review the intricate relationship between iron and oxygen sensing and examine the degree to which the hypoxia-responsiveness of the lung can be modified through modulation of iron status. The seminar will conclude with a consideration of a number of diseases in which pulmonary hypertension is a significant factor and consider the therapeutic potential of modulating iron stores in these patients.