Lactate as a regulator of iron homeostasis

The key metabolic intermediate lactate can increase expression of the liver-derived peptide hepcidin, the central regulator of body iron homeostasis. A new paper by Liu et al. shows that lactate achieves this by binding to and activating soluble adenylyl cyclase, thereby increasing cellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) (cAMP) and enhancing signaling through the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway to modulate hepcidin expression.