Fate and specific tissue retention of toxaphene in mice

Series of female virgin and pregnant albino mice were i.v. injected with 14C-labelled- or unlabelled toxaphene (16 mg/kg b.w.). After survival times ranging from 1 min to 32 days the toxaphene distribution in the body was studied using whole-body autoradiography and capillary gas-chromatography. Autoradiographic studies have shown that after an initial accumulation in the liver, brown fat, lung, brain, kidney, and ovaria (corpora lutea) there was a gradual redistribution of radioactivity to the white fat within 4 h postinjection. The labelling was then decreasing rapidly and only negligible amounts of the radioactivity were present in the adipose tissue after 32 days. In the fetus only the liver and adrenals showed a distinct labelling. A specific and persistent accumulation of the label was detected in some zones of the adrenal cortex suggesting a possible direct interference of toxaphene with adrenal steroid hormone synthesis. The gas chromatographic pattern of toxaphene-derived residues in the tissue samples resembled that of the technical toxaphene, but was changing in different tissues with the time. The liver chromatograms indicated more extensive formation of metabolites.