Linkage of Pteridine Metabolism to Iron Homeostasis*

Iron is an essential growth factor for the proliferation and differentiation of all living cells in being centrally involved in oxygen transport by hemoglobin and myoglobin, in electron transport during mitochondrial respiration as being a part of complex I and II enzymes or in the regulation of transcription via its role as central component of ribonucelotid reductase (1,2). Moroever, iron plays a critical role in macrophage mediated cytotoxicity by contributing to the production of highly toxic hydroxy radical species needed for host defense (3). In addition, radicals formed by the catalytic action of by iron can modulate the binding affinities of several transcription factors to their target promoter region, such as hypoxia inducible factor -1 or nuclear factor-kB, thus affecting transcription of stress inducible genes (4-6).