Early Effect of Ethionine on Liver Affinity for Iron

Abstract

INCREASED affinity for iron by the liver was shown to occur in vivo and in vitro when ethionine was fed to animals from 1 to 3 weeks^1–3. After 3 weeks of feeding ethionine there was a change in the affinity of the liver for iron, so that by 4 weeks there was no significant difference between the experimental and the control animals. By 6 weeks the affinity effect had been reversed by the liver so that the animals treated with ethionine had a decreased affinity when compared with the controls. The purpose of the present experiment was to determine the changes in the affinity before 1 week of ethionine treatment, as it is known that changes in the liver occur very rapidly after feeding ethionine^4,5. The present experiments were designed to observe any possible changes in affinity shortly after the administration of ethionine and to correlate this with certain morphological and histochemical changes observed previously⁵.