Early ultrastructural alterations in rats after administration of 239Pu-citrate

Three series of ultrastructural studies are carried out with adult male Sprague Dawley rats injected with 239plutonium citrate. Two groups of rats are used in the first series of experiments. The animals of the first group are injected with 5 x 2.3 KBq while the animals of the second group received 5 x 9.25 KBq. The animals of the second series of experiment are injected with a single dose of 1 KBq while the animals of the third series received 5 x 200 Bq. Seven days after the first injections, animals kidneys of the first series of experiments have serious mitochondrial alterations in the proximal convoluted tubular and glomerular cells. Bone marrow cells have the same type of mitochondrial alterations as the above kidney cells. The affected mitochondria are swollen and have their cristae partially or completely destroyed. Very slight subcellular alterations are noted in the livers. The same type of alterations are observed in the kidney and bone marrow samples of the animals two days after injection of 1 KBq, but 23 days later no more ultrastructural alteration are noticed. No subcellular alterations are observed in the animals of the third series. These observations suggest that the chemical origin of these cellular lesions has to be taken into consideration even if the mass of injected radionuclide is low (2.04-81.6 mg/kg).