Under conditions of iron deficiency, irp1/2 bind to the IRE located at the 5’UTR of ft-h, ft-l and ireg1 mRNAs, repressing their translation, while their binding to the IREs of the 3’UTR stabilize the tfr and dmt1 transcripts, preventing their degradation and increasing iron uptake. Here, SLC11A2 is linked to nutritional disorder.