LAUSR

Ironing out the details of mucosal healing Anemia is a frequent complication of disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, occurring in part as a result of increased bleeding into the intestine. Bessman et al. show that the peptide hormone hepcidin, which regulates systemic iron homeostasis, is required for intestinal repair in a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease (see the Perspective by Rescigno). This effect was independent of hepatocyte-produced hepcidin and systemic iron levels. Instead, production of hepcidin by conventional dendritic cells was necessary and sufficient to promote local iron sequestration by macrophages, which in turn modulated the makeup of the gut microbiota to one with a more beneficial distribution of species. Science, this issue p. 186; see also p. 129 Hepcidin, a master regulator of iron homeostasis, is released from immunological dendritic cells and required for intestinal tissue repair. Bleeding and altered iron distribution occur in multiple gastrointestinal diseases, but the importance and regulation of these changes remain unclear. We found that hepcidin, the master regulator of systemic iron homeostasis, is required for tissue repair in the mouse intestine after experimental damage. This effect was independent of hepatocyte-derived hepcidin or systemic iron levels. Rather, we identified conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) as a source of hepcidin that is induced by microbial stimulation in mice, prominent in the inflamed intestine of humans, and essential for tissue repair. cDC-derived hepcidin acted on ferroportin-expressing phagocytes to promote local iron sequestration, which regulated the microbiota and consequently facilitated intestinal repair. Collectively, these results identify a pathway whereby cDC-derived hepcidin promotes mucosal healing in the intestine through means of nutritional immunity.