Abstract

Five Wistar rats were given an intraperitoneal injection of [^114mIn]InCl₃ during four consecutive days. One hour after the last injection the rats were sacrificed. The in vivo distribution of ^114mIn was studied in the blood and in different organs. Differential centrifugation was used to study the distribution in liver, kidney and spleen homogenate. Rat serum, packed cell lysate, urine and the cytosol of liver, kidney and spleen homogenate were examined by size exclusion fast protein liquid chromatography. The results showed that serum accounts for 90% of the indium activity in whole blood. Indium is preferentially accumulated within the liver, spleen and kidney, the highest amount of ^114mIn being localised in the cytosolic fraction followed by the mitochondria. Size exclusion experiments showed that, in rat serum, indium is exclusively bound to transferrin. These results differed from earlier in vitro incubation experiments of human serum with ^114mIn. It was not possible, from the experiments described herein, to conclude unequivocally whether indium is bound to haemoglobin of packed cell lysate or to another high molecular mass compound. Indium is associated with the high molecular mass fraction in liver, kidney and spleen cytosol; only in kidney are small amounts of ^114mIn found in the low molecular mass fraction. The in vivo inhibitory effect of indium on the δ-aminolaevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) enzymatic activity in red blood cells and kidney tissue, well documented by other researchers, could not be attributed to direct binding of indium with this enzyme.