EPO and Iron deficiency anemia: Observed differences in expression of proteins directly involved in the secretory process of FGF23, furin and GalNT3, suggest that EPO is not simply an intermediary between iron deficiency and FGF23: furin plays an important role in the upregulation of iFGF23 cleavage in iron deficiency, whereas EPO might act via GalNT3 inhibition as discussed in Section “Erythropoietin” (Hanudel et al., 2018).