Differences in the uptake of transferrin bound 239Pu and 59Fe into multicellular spheroids of hepatocytes from adult male rats |
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Authors: | F Schuler C Csovcsics D M Taylor |
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Institution: | Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institut für Genetik und Toxikologie, F.R. Germany. |
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Abstract: | Hepatocytes were cultured as monolayers and multicellular spheroids, respectively. The uptake of both transferrin-bound metals, iron and plutonium, differed significantly between these two culture systems. The uptake into the multicellular spheroids for plutonium was about 30 times greater, and for iron about 4 times greater, than in monolayer-cultured hepatocytes, which is not a consequence of proliferation and/or de-differentiation of the hepatocytes in the multicellular spheroid culture system. A comparison of the iron and plutonium uptake showed that plutonium was delivered to the cells to an 8-fold greater extent than iron if the hepatocytes were cultured as spheroids. Additionally, the binding of plutonium was not inhibited by preincubation of the spheroids with the iron-transferrin complex. Therefore, we propose that there are two different binding sites for iron and plutonium on hepatocyte membranes. |
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