Zinc is involved in a variety of biological processes, as a structural, catalytic, and intracellular and intercellular signaling component. Thus zinc homeostasis is tightly controlled at the whole body, tissue, cellular, and subcellular levels by a number of proteins, with zinc transporters being particularly important. In metazoan, two zinc transporter families, Zn transporters (ZnT) and Zrt-,...

Two metalloproteases have recently been linked to the immune response in Lepidoptera. In addition, zinc is highly important in many mammalian immune-related functions. Because of these, we investigated the effect of zinc and two zinc-protease inhibitors on Manduca sexta hemocyte behavior in vitro. Plasmatocytes were significantly more elongated in Grace's medium supplemented with 100 micro m zi...

Hepatic encephalopathy is one of the major complications in decompensated liver cirrhosis. The current study was conducted to clarify the mechanisms of zinc deficiency in liver cirrhosis and its involvement in hepatic encephalopathy via ammonia metabolism. Ten patients each with compensated or decompensated liver cirrhosis and 11 healthy volunteers were enrolled in the study. Serum zinc levels ...

Epithelial cells of the small intestine are the site of zinc absorption. Intestinal uptake of zinc is inversely proportional to the dietary supply of this essential micronutrient. The mechanism responsible for this adaptive differential in apical zinc transport is not known. The zinc transporter Zip4 (Slc39a4) is essential for adequate enteric zinc uptake. In mice, Zip4 expression is upregulate...

In atherosclerosis and diabetes mellitus, the concomitant presence of low-grade systemic inflammation and mild zinc deficiency highlights a role for zinc nutrition in the management of chronic disease. This review aims to evaluate the literature that reports on the interactions of zinc and cytokines. In humans, inflammatory cytokines have been shown both to up- and down-regulate the expression ...

Overweight and obesity are associated with low grade of inflammation and chronic inflammatory response characterized by abnormal production and activation of some pro-inflammatory signalling pathways. Taking into account that obesity is the direct result of an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure, the nutritional factors in the diet, with particular focus on zinc, may play a p...

Zinc ion homeostasis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is controlled primarily through the transcriptional regulation of zinc uptake systems in response to intracellular zinc levels. A high-affinity uptake system is encoded by the ZRT1 gene, and its expression is induced more than 30-fold in zinc-limited cells. A low-affinity transporter is encoded by the ZRT2 gene, and this system is also regulated ...

Zinc is a key element for growth and development. In this narrative review, we focus on the role of dietary zinc in early life (including embryo, fetus and preterm neonate), analyzing consequences of zinc deficiency and adequacy of current recommendations on dietary zinc. We performed a systematic search of articles on the role of zinc in early life. We selected and analyzed 81 studies. Results...

The activation process of secretory or membrane-bound zinc enzymes is thought to be a highly coordinated process involving zinc transport, trafficking, transfer and coordination. We have previously shown that secretory and membrane-bound zinc enzymes are activated in the early secretory pathway (ESP) via zinc-loading by the zinc transporter 5 (ZnT5)-ZnT6 hetero-complex and ZnT7 homo-complex (zi...

Zinc is an essential cofactor of all major eukaryotic RNA polymerases. How the activity of these enzymes is coordinated or regulated according to cellular zinc levels is largely unknown. Here we show that the stability of RNA polymerase I (RNAPI) is tightly coupled to zinc availability in vivo. In zinc deficiency, RNAPI is specifically degraded by proteolysis in the vacuole in a pathway depende...