57Fe enrichment in mice for β-thalassaemia studies via Mössbauer spectroscopy of blood samples.

In this work, wild-type and heterozygous β-thalassaemic mice were enriched with 57Fe via gastrointestinal absorption to characterize in greater detail the iron complexes then identifiable via Mössbauer spectroscopy. The 57Fe enrichment method was validated and Mössbauer spectra were obtained at 80 K from blood samples from wild-type and β-thalassaemic mice at 1, 3, 6, and 9 months of age. As expected, the haemoglobin levels of the thalassaemic mice were lower than from normal mice, indicating anaemia. Furthermore, significant amounts of ferritin-like iron were observed in the thalassaemic mice samples, which decreased with mouse age, reflecting the pattern of reticulocyte count reduction reported in the literature.