parameter values. Although hepcidin would be an intuitive point of high control of this system (and therefore a good therapeutic target), in the present model this is not the case. It seems that targeting the promoters of hepcidin expression may be more desirable. However this conclusion has to be expressed with some reservation that stems from the fact that the global sensitivity analysis identified the hepcidin synthesis and degradation reactions in the group of those with the largest uncertainty. By changing parameter values by no more than 10% it would be possible to have the hepcidin expression and degradation show higher control. So it seems important that the expression of hepcidin be studied in more detail. We also predict that the control of hepcidin over the system would be higher if the model had included the regulation of intestinal ferroportin by hepatic ferroportin.

The global sensitivity analysis, however, allows taking strong conclusions about the reactions for which the reference steady state is not much different from the maximal and minimal values. It turns out that these are the reactions that have the largest and the smallest control over the system variables. For example, the reactions with greatest control on the 