Pattern of iron storage in the rat heart following iron overloading with trimethylhexanoyl-ferrocene

Female Wistar rats with slight iron deficiency anemia were kept on a diet containing 0.5% trimethylhexanoyl (TMH)-ferrocene for up to 79 weeks. In the state of iron deficiency, the heart was free of light-microscopically detectable iron. After 7 weeks of the TMH-ferrocene diet, the first iron-positive granules appeared in perivascular macrophages. Further oral administration caused a progression of iron deposition in these cells, visible in the form of a granular staining but also as a diffuse iron staining of the cytoplasm. Accordingly, at the electron-microscopical level, the iron was stored partly as free ferritin molecules in the cytosol, and partly in lysosomes in the form of ferritin and/or hemosiderin. After 11 weeks, further iron-positive cells with relatively small dark-blue granules were found in the vicinity of capillaries, which could be identified as fibrocytes by means of electron microscopy. In addition, slight iron deposition occurred in the endothelial cells of the cardiac capillaries, likewise mainly in the form of small, uniform siderosomes. The myocytes showed no product of Perls' Prussian blue reaction during the whole period of investigation. From the 11th week onwards, discrete ferritin molecules were detected electron microscopically within lysosomes of these cells. Their amount increased slowly with progression of the TMH-ferrocene feeding period. Free ferritin molecules could be observed in the cytosol of fibrocytes, endothelial cells and myocytes in only very slight concentrations, whilst they were more plentiful in macrophages. In hereditary hemochromatosis and posttransfusional siderosis, the iron is found predominantly in myocytes and appears to cause cell damage, whilst this is not the case in experimental iron overload in rats.