Iron overload diseases: the chemical speciation of non-heme iron deposits in iron loaded mammalian tissues

Fe-57 Mossbauer spectra of iron overloaded human spleen, rat spleen and rat liver tissue samples at 78 K were found to consist of a quadrupole doublet (major component) with magnetic sextet (minor component with fractional sp ectral area F-s). The distributions of F-s for spleen tissue from two diffe rent clinically identifiable groups (n=7 and n=12) of thalassemic patients were found to be significantly different. The value of F-s for dietary-iron loaded rat liver was found to rise significantly with age/duration (up to 24 months) of iron loading.