⁵⁷Fe enrichment in mice for β-thalassaemia studies via Mössbauer spectroscopy of blood samples

In this work, wild-type and heterozygous β-thalassaemic mice were enriched with ⁵⁷Fe via gastrointestinal absorption to characterize in greater detail the iron complexes then identifiable via Mössbauer spectroscopy. The ⁵⁷Fe enrichment method was validated and Mössbauer spectra were obtained at 80 K from blood samples from wild-type and β-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.