Considering that the development of hepatic lesions related to iron overload diseases might be a result of abnormally expressed hepatic genes, we searched for new genes up-regulated under the condition of iron excess. By suppressive subtractive hybridization performed between livers from carbonyl iron-overloaded and control mice, we isolated a 225-base pair cDNA. By Northern blot analysis, the corresponding mRNA was confirmed to be overexpressed in livers of experimentally (carbonyl iron and iron-dextran-treated mice) and spontaneously (␤ 2 -microglobulin knockout mice) ironoverloaded mice. In addition, ␤ 2 -microglobulin knockout mice fed with a low iron content diet exhibited a decrease of hepatic mRNA expression. The murine fulllength cDNA was isolated and was found to encode an 83-amino acid protein presenting a strong homology in its C-terminal region to the human antimicrobial peptide hepcidin. In addition, we cloned the corresponding rat and human orthologue cDNAs. Both mouse and human genes named HEPC are constituted of 3 exons and 2 introns and are located on chromosome 7 and 19, respectively, in close proximity to USF2 gene. In mouse and human, HEPC mRNA was predominantly expressed in the liver. During both in vivo and in vitro studies, HEPC mRNA expression was enhanced in mouse hepatocytes under the effect of lipopolysaccharide. Finally, to analyze the intracellular localization of the predicted protein, we used the green fluorescent protein chimera expression vectors. The murine green fluorescent protein-prohepcidin protein was exclusively localized in the nucleus. When the putative nuclear localization signal was deleted, the resulting protein was addressed to the cytoplasm. Taken together, our data strongly suggest that the product of the new liver-specific gene HEPC might play a specific role during iron overload and exhibit additional functions distinct from its antimicrobial activity.

Originally identified as a gene up-regulated by iron overload in mouse liver, the HEPC gene encodes hepcidin, the first mammalian liver-specific antimicrobial peptide and potential key regulator of iron metabolism. Here we demonstrate that during rat liver development, amounts of HEPC transcripts were very low in fetal liver, strongly and transiently increased shortly after birth, and reappeared in adult liver. To gain insight into mechanisms that regulate hepatic expression of hepcidin, 5-flanking regions of human and mouse HEPC genes were isolated and analyzed by functional and DNA binding assays. Human and mouse HEPC promoterluciferase reporter vectors exhibited strong basal activity in hepatoma HuH-7 and mouse hepatocytes, respectively, but not in non-hepatic U-2OS cells. We found that CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein ␣ (C/EBP␣) and C/EBP␤ were respectively very potent and weak activators of both human and mouse promoters. In contrast, co-expression of hepatocyte nuclear factor 4␣ (HNF4␣) failed to induce HEPC promoter activity. By electrophoretic mobility shift assay we demonstrated that one putative C/EBP element found in the human HEPC promoter (؊250/؊230) predominantly bound C/EBP␣ from rat liver nuclear extracts. Hepatic deletion of the C/EBP␣ gene resulted in reduced expression of HEPC transcripts in mouse liver. In contrast, amounts of HEPC transcripts increased in liver-specific HNF4␣-null mice. Decrease of hepcidin mRNA in mice lacking hepatic C/EBP␣ was accompanied by iron accumulation in periportal hepatocytes. Finally, iron overload led to a significant increase of C/EBP␣ protein and HEPC transcripts in mouse liver. Taken together, these data demonstrate that C/EBP␣ is likely to be a key regulator of HEPC gene transcription and provide a novel mechanism for cross-talk between the C/EBP pathway and iron metabolism.

In contrast to the human genome, the mouse genome contains two HEPC genes encoding hepcidin, a key regulator of iron homeostasis. Here we report a comparative analysis of sequence, genomic structure, expression and iron regulation of mouse HEPC genes. The predicted processed 25 amino acid hepcidin 2 peptide share 68% identity with hepcidin 1 with perfect conservation of eight cysteine residues. Both HEPC1 and HEPC2 genes have similar genomic organization and have probably arisen from a recent duplication of chromosome 7 region, including the HEPC ancestral gene and a part of the adjacent USF2 gene. Insertion of a retroviral intracisternal A‐particle element was found upstream of the HEPC1 gene. Both genes are highly expressed in the liver and to a much lesser extent in the heart. In contrast to HEPC1, a high amount of HEPC2 transcripts was detected in the pancreas. Expression of both genes was increased in the liver during carbonyl–iron and iron–dextran overload. Overall our data suggest that both HEPC1 and HEPC2 genes are involved in iron metabolism regulation but could exhibit different activities and/or play distinct roles.