{"doi":"10.3390/ijms21186941","title":"Heme Oxygenase-1 Supports Mitochondrial Energy Production and Electron Transport Chain Activity in Cultured Lung Epithelial Cells","abstract":"Heme oxygenase-1 is induced by many cellular stressors and catalyzes the breakdown of heme to generate carbon monoxide and bilirubin, which confer cytoprotection. The role of HO-1 likely extends beyond the simple production of antioxidants, for example HO-1 activity has also been implicated in metabolism, but this function remains unclear. Here we used an HO-1 knockout lung cell line to further define the contribution of HO-1 to cellular metabolism. We found that knockout cells exhibit reduced growth and mitochondrial respiration, measured by oxygen consumption rate. Specifically, we found that HO-1 contributed to electron transport chain activity and utilization of certain mitochondrial fuels. Loss of HO-1 had no effect on intracellular non-heme iron concentration or on proteins whose levels and activities depend on available iron. We show that HO-1 supports essential functions of mitochondria, which highlights the protective effects of HO-1 in diverse pathologies and tissue types. Our results suggest that regulation of heme may be an equally significant role of HO-1.","journal":"International Journal of Molecular Sciences","year":2020,"id":68596,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":22,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9572,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":363641,"name":"David C. Garcia","orcid":"0000-0002-6029-7964","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363642,"name":"Alejandro Scaffa","orcid":"0000-0002-9493-6912","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":365305,"name":"Abigail L. Peterson","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105507,"name":"Andrew J. Ghio","orcid":"0000-0003-0502-6448","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363643,"name":"Phyllis A. Dennery","orcid":"0000-0001-5745-1855","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363640,"name":"Jennifer F. Carr","orcid":"0000-0003-3899-8964","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":43,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:41:52.279368Z","pmid":"32971746","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}