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. 2021 Jan 26;10(2):177. doi: 10.3390/antiox10020177

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© 2021 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Overview of Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) enzymatic reaction and physiological roles of its enzymatic by-products: HO-1 is induced under various physiological challenges including stress, hypoxia, ROS, heat shock and microbial infections. The HO-1 catabolizes heme into equimolar ratios of CO, iron and biliverdin, using NADPH and cytochrome p450 reductase. Biliverdin is further converted into bilirubin by biliverdin reductase. The free iron is stored by the iron storage enzyme ferritin. CO, bilirubin and ferritin drives several host protective physiological roles including anti-inflammation, cryoprotection and anti-oxidation. Physiological roles of each by-product are in red font.