Figure 1.

Regulators of intracellular zinc homeostasis. The labile pool of intracellular zinc is tightly controlled by zinc importers (ZIPs), zinc exporters (ZnTs), zinc storing vesicles, and zinc binding proteins such as metallothionein (MT). MT plays a critical role in zinc homeostasis acting as a buffer in the steady state while controlling the cellular distribution of transiently elevated zinc in response to perturbations and/or agonists such as nitric oxide (NO).[141] Modified figure from references.[74,142,143]