TFRC and microcytic anemia: Secondly, reports showed previously that the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) regulated iron homeostasis by modulating TFR1 stability and altering cellular iron flux (Bayeva et al. 2012), and inhibition of mTOR was related to microcytic anemia (Przybylowski et al. 2013), suggesting that mTOR played a crucial role in iron homeostasis, partly through TFR1.