The entering of indium-111 and iron-59 into the hepatocytes from partially hepatectomized rats differ from that of gallium-67.

We recently suggested that the transferrin (Tf)-gallium-67 (Ga-67) complex dissociated on the surface of the hepatocytes after partial hepatectomy and free Ga-67 bound to heparan sulfate in the extracellular matrix. In the present study, we investigated whether the entering of indium-111 (In-111) and iron-59 (Fe-59) with high affinity to transferrin differed from the entering of Ga-67 by the hepatocytes after partial hepatectomy. In-111 was almost taken by the plasma and little taken by the red blood cell. On the other hand, the uptake of Fe-59 by the red blood cell was higher than plasma. The uptake of Fe-59 by the bone marrow was significantly higher than that of In-111. The uptake of In-111 and Fe-59 by the liver tissue was reached a maximum 2 d after partial hepatectomy but the uptake ratio of In-111 was lower than that of Fe-59. We suspected that the uptake of Fe-59 by the liver tissue was the highest because of the high binding affinity of Tf-Fe-59 to Tf-receptor. The entering of In-111 and Fe-59 into the hepatocytes was also reached a maximum 2 d after partial hepatectomy but the ratio of Fe-59 was slightly lower than that of In-111. These results suggested that the binding affinity to Tf could have played a crucial role in the differences of the entering of In-111, Fe-59 and Ga-67 into the hepatocytes of partially hepatectomized rats.