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Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Quantitating Iron Transport Across the Mouse Placenta In Vivo Using Nonradioactive Iron Isotopes
Published on: May 10, 2022
RADIOACTIVE IRON AND ITS METABOLISM IN ANEMIA : ITS ABSORPTION, TRANSPORTATION, AND UTILIZATION
P F Hahn1, W F Bale, E O Lawrence
1Departments of Pathology and Medicine (Radiology), The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York, and the Radiation Laboratory, The University of California, Berkeley, California.
Abstract:
Artificially produced radioactive iron is an extremely sensitive agent for use in following iron in the course of its changes in body metabolism, lending itself to studies of absorption, transport, exchange, mobilization, and excretion. The need of the body for iron in some manner determines the absorption of this element. In the normal dog when there is no need for the element, it is absorbed in negligible amounts. In the anemic animal iron is quite promptly assimilated. The plasma is clearly the means of transport of iron from the gastrointestinal tract to its point of mobilization for fabrication into hemoglobin. The speed of absorption and transfer of iron to the red cell is spectacular. The importance of the liver and bone marrow in iron metabolism is confirmed.
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