Effect of a Copper-Molybdenum Compound Upon Copper Metabolism in the Rat

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Abstract
X-ray diffraction powder analysis was used to identify a copper-molybdenum (Cu-Mo) compound prepared under ordinary laboratory conditions as a synthetic form of the rare natural mineral, lindgrenite. Weanling rats were used in experiments designed to study the metabolic availability of copper from the Cu-Mo compound. In either normal or copper-depleted rats fed the Cu-Mo compound as their only copper supplement, serum ceruloplasmin oxidase activity (CPA) was significantly lower than in rats fed isocupric levels of copper sulfate. When fed with copper sulfate, a quantity of molybdenum (as sodium molybdate) equal to that in synthetic lindgrenite had no effect upon CPA. In normal but not in copper-depleted rats, liver and kidney copper concentrations were reduced when the Cu-Mo compound was fed instead of copper sulfate, either without or with sodium molybdate. Hemoglobin concentrations were repleted more slowly following copper depletion in the lindgrenite-supplemented rats than in the copper sulfate-treated rats. These results suggest that copper in the form of the Cu-Mo compound, synthetic lindgrenite, is metabolically less available than copper from the sulfate salt.