Nutrition · 22 Sept 2026
Excess free cysteine pried iron from ferritin and killed cells via mitochondria in a Rockefeller study
Source: EurekAlert
What the research found
Study (cell). Toshitaka Nakamura, Kivanç Birsoy and Rockefeller colleagues report in Nature Metabolism that excess cysteine mobilizes iron from ferritin, floods mitochondria via SLC25A28, and triggers iron-dependent cell death. Glutathione does not do this, which may explain why cells spend energy packing cysteine into glutathione. Cell biology, not a diet trial. Educational research notes, not an amino-acid warning label.
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