ReviewFrontiers in immunology2021
The Iron Curtain: Macrophages at the Interface of Systemic and Microenvironmental Iron Metabolism and Immune Response in Cancer.
Review in Frontiers in immunology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- CD44 expression associates with EBV LMP1, reduced CD8⁺ T cell infiltration, and lower PD-L1 combined positive score in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.Infectious agents and cancer · 2026Article
- Iron Compartmentalisation and Vascular Endothelial Cell Dysfunction.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Resiquimod-loaded magnetic nanoparticles reprogram macrophages and induce oxidative cytotoxicity against triple-negative breast cancer cells.International journal of pharmaceutics: X · 2026Article
- Tumor-associated macrophages promote ferroptosis resistance in glioblastoma by stimulating iron-loaded extracellular vesicle release.Journal of neuro-oncology · 2026Article
- Proteomic landscape of Ewing sarcoma primary tumors and metastases.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ferroptosis as a Novel Therapeutic Strategy to Overcome Multidrug Resistance in Colorectal Cancer.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Metal-polyphenol nanomedicines for malignant tumor therapy.Frontiers in chemistry · 2026Review
- Iron homeostasis and macrophage polarization in oral squamous cell carcinoma: mechanisms and therapeutic perspectives.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Cross-scale modeling reveals a TFRC-driven immunosuppressive macrophage niche in cervical cancer.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- Advances in ferroptosis mechanisms and therapeutic potential in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Ferroptosis and macrophage efferocytosis in periodontitis: Biological insights and therapeutic advances.Virulence · 2025Review
- Iron and the immune system.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2025Review
- Magnetic susceptibility properties of tumor-associated cells imaged by MRI reveal glioblastoma infiltration in the edema region.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Mechanism and role of regulated cell death in tumor immunity and immunotherapy.Cancer communications (London, England) · 2025Review
- Wound Healing: Molecular Mechanisms, Antimicrobial Peptides, and Emerging Technologies in Regenerative Medicine.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Tumoroid Model Reveals Synergistic Impairment of Metabolism by Iron Chelators and Temozolomide in Chemo-Resistant Patient-derived Glioblastoma Cells.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Relationship between serum ferritin and proinflammatory markers in late pregnancy: An exploratory analysis from Cartagena, ColombiaBiomedica : revista del Instituto Nacional de Salud · 2025Article
- Prognostic significance of baseline serum ferritin in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma cases: A retrospective study from southern India.The Indian journal of medical research · 2025Article
- The Multifaceted Role of Macrophages in Biology and Diseases.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Analysis of ferritinophagy-related genes associated with the prognosis and regulatory mechanisms in non-small cell lung cancer.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Macrophages fulfill central functions in systemic iron metabolism and immune response. Infiltration and polarization of macrophages in the tumor microenvironment is associated with differential cancer prognosis. Distinct metabolic iron and immune phenotypes in tumor associated macrophages have been observed in most cancers. While this prompts the hypothesis that macroenvironmental manifestations of dysfunctional iron metabolism have direct associations with microenvironmental tumor immune response, these functional connections are still emerging. We review our current understanding of the role of macrophages in systemic and microenvironmental immune response and iron metabolism and discuss these functions in the context of cancer and immunometabolic precision therapy approaches. Accumulation of tumor associated macrophages with distinct iron pathologies at the invasive tumor front suggests an "Iron Curtain" presenting as an innate functional interface between systemic and microenvironmental iron metabolism and immune response that can be harnessed therapeutically to further our goal of treating and eliminating cancer.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.