Pathological relationships involving iron and myelin may constitute a shared mechanism linking various rare and common brain diseases.

We previously demonstrated elevated brain iron levels in myelinated structures and associated cells in a hemochromatosis Hfe (-/-) xTfr2 (mut) mouse model. This was accompanied by altered expression of a group of myelin-related genes, including a suite of genes causatively linked to the rare disease family 'neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation' (NBIA). Expanded data mining and ontological analyses have now identified additional myelin-related transcriptome changes in response to brain iron loading.