Determining the level of iron in organs of old rats

Abstract

Introduction: Iron is an essential trace element, vital for numerous physiological processes in the organism. The concentration of iron in tissues must be closely regulated, as it is shown that bigger fluctuations in its concentration could lead to metabolic disturbances and tissue damage. Aging is an universal and inevitable process that leads to a series of adverse changes, as well as imbalances in the amount of trace elements, most often of iron. Iron imbalance in the elderly is a widespread problem, so it is necessary to examine the influence of age on the distribution of iron in the body. Aim: The aim of this paper is to examine whether and how aging affects the distribution of iron in certain tissues (heart, kidney, testis, liver, blood) in experimental animals. Material and Methods: We used male Wistar rats in this experiment. Total of twenty animals were divided into two groups: old and young. Both groups consisted of ten animals. After the completion of the experiment, animals were sacrificed under general anesthesia and their tissues were treated in order to determine the iron content in them. Results: We found a statistically significant increase in the amount of iron in the testicular tissue in the group of old animals (p < 0.001), compared to the control group of young mice. Statistically significant increase was also confirmed in the kidney(p < 0.001), and in blood (p < 0.01). The liver and heart tissue demonstrated a tendency towards decreasing amounts of iron. Conclusion: In this experiment, we demonstrated that age causes a highly statistically significant accumulation of iron in tissues of the testis, kidney and blood, while the amount of iron in the liver and the heart tends to decrease. This kind of changes can create potentially harmful effects on these tissues.

Keywords

• Iron
• elderly
• kidney
• heart
• liver
• blood
• testis