57Fe enrichment in mice for \b{eta}-thalassaemia studies via Mossbauer spectroscopy of blood samples

TL;DR

This study demonstrates a method for enriching mice with 57Fe to analyze iron complexes in blood via Mossbauer spectroscopy, revealing age-related changes in iron storage in thalassaemic mice.

Contribution

It introduces a validated 57Fe enrichment technique for mice and applies Mossbauer spectroscopy to study iron complexes in blood over time.

Findings

Thalassaemic mice show lower hemoglobin levels indicating anemia.

Significant ferritin-like iron decreases with age in thalassaemic mice.

The enrichment method enables detailed iron complex analysis in blood samples.

Abstract

In this work, wild-type and heterozygous \b{eta}-thalassaemic mice were enriched with 57Fe through gastrointestinal absorption to characterize in more details the iron complexes appeared in the measured Mossbauer spectra. The 57Fe enrichment method was validated and Mossbauer spectra were obtained at 80K from blood samples from wild-type and \b{eta}-thalassaemic mice at 1, 3, 6, and 9 months of age. As expected, the haemoglobin levels of the thalassaemic mice were lower than from normal mice indicating anaemia. Furthermore, significant amounts of ferritin-like iron were observed in the thalassaemic mice samples, which decreased with mouse age, reflecting the pattern of reticulocyte count reduction reported in the literature.