Biology ETDs

Publication Date

7-19-1972

Abstract

Radioactive antimony is of biological interest because several of its isotopes are fission products and, therefore, represent a potential hazard in a nuclear accident. Also, workers may be exposed to antimony in its preparation for industrial use, and organic compounds of antimony are used to treat certain tropical diseases. This study was undertaken to determine the effect of some variables of chemical form on metabolism of inhaled 124Sb in dogs and hamsters. Three dogs each were exposed to three aerosols formed from a 124Sb-tartrate complex solution from which droplets were generated and passed through a heating column maintained at 100 C, 500 C and 1000 C. Sacrifices were at 32, 64 and 128 days post-exposure. The apparent physical effect of raising the temperature of generated aerosol was a decrease in the median particle size. The greatest and most rapid elimination of the deposited radioactivity occurred with the 100 C aerosols. The 500 C aerosols were eliminated to the least extent. These differences were due in part to differences in solubility in the lung. At 32 days, 1.8%, 59% and 13% of the total tissue burden was in the lungs of the 100 C, 500 C, and 1000 C animals, respectively. Outside the lungs, major accumulating tissues were liver, skin, spleen and thyroid. The latter tissue had the greatest concentration of antimony, with 3.6%, 1.2% and 2.0% of the body burden per gram with the 100 C, 500 C and 1000 C aerosols, respectively. The pelt contained as much as 60% of the body burden at 32 days post-exposure. Blood samples revealed that antimony was concentrated in the red blood cells (RBC) ; RBC/ plasma ratios were greater than 5 for all samples to 21 days post-exposure. However, retention time in the RBC was short (7-8 days) and, therefore, would not have greatly influenced whole-body retention. Long-term biological half-lives, which were obtained by least-squares fit to whole-body retention curves, were 100, 36 and 45 days for the 100 C, 500 C and 1000 C aerosols, respectively. The longer half-life with the 100 C aerosol may have occurred due to a small tissue compartment, with a slow turnover time, which became important at the lower levels of activity retained with this aerosol. In another study, 21 hamsters were exposed to an aerosol of trivalent 124Sb-tartrate complex and 33 hamsters were exposed to an aerosol of pentavalent 124Sb-tartrate complex. Long-term biological half-life of retention was approximately 16 days for both the trivalent and pentavalent aerosol groups. Early blood samples revealed a greater RBC concentration of the trivalent than of the pentavalent antimony, although RBC /plasma ratios increased in the latter group such that no differences were observed after day 2 post-exposure. Sacrifices were performed on days 0, 1, 2, 5, 8, 15 and 32. Liver, skeleton and skin were the major tissues of antimony accumulation. For all but the 0 day sacrifices, trivalent antimony levels in the liver were higher than with pentavalent antimony. On day 32 post-exposure, mean values of 2.10 + 0. 80 and 1. 00 + 0. 50 percent of the total tissue burden of 124Sb were obtained per gram of liver tissue in the trivalent and pentavalent aerosol groups, respectively. For both aerosols, the skin contained a large percentage of the body burden at all sacrifice dates. A gavage (stomach tube) experiment was performed to determine if significant amounts of either antimony compound were absorbed from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Four days after introduction into the stomach only about 2% of the initial body burden remained in the whole animals, most of which was in the GI tract. It was concluded that GI tract absorption did not affect the results of the inhalation study.

Project Sponsors

AEC Contract AT (29-2)-1013 with the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, a fellowship granted by the Associated Western Universities, an NDEA fellowship through the University of New Mexico

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Biology

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

UNM Biology Department

First Committee Member (Chair)

Marvin LeRoy Riedesel

Second Committee Member

Gordon Verle Johnson

Third Committee Member

Roger Orville McClellan

Fourth Committee Member

Paul Richard Kerkof

Fifth Committee Member

Robert G. Thomas, Sixth Commitee Member: Milton Kahn

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