Iron and chemical control of breathing

Iron is a constituent of eukaryotic cells. In a previous study we found that chronic deficiency of iron decreases the acute hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR) along with morphological changes in the carotid body, which supports iron's role in chemoreception. The question arises to what extend this role is specific for the carotid generated hypoxic chemoreflex. We addressed the issue in the current study in which we compared the effects of iron chelation on the HVR (14 and 9% O2 in N2) and hypercapnic ventilatory (5 and 10% CO2 in O2) (HCVR) responses, mediated, in the main, by peripheral and central chemorecepto…