A comparison of the distribution of Se75in proteins of blood,liver,and kidney from rats differing in Selenium status

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Abstract
Rats maintained on a diet deficient in a-tocopherol and selenium began dying after 3 weeks. The livers exhibited classical dietary necrotic degeneration. The distribution of Se75 in proteins of blood, liver, and kidney separated by gel-filtration was compared 3 days after injecting Se75labelled sodium selenite into rats differing in selenium and vitamin E status. No differences were found between the distribution patterns of Se75 in proteins from animals deficient in vitamin E and in those from animals fed a vitamin E-supplemented diet. For animals fed seleniumdeficient or selenium-supplemented diets the patterns of Se75 distribution in liver and plasma proteins differed markedly, but little difference was noted in the proteins of the kidney. After 11 weeks on the selenium-deficient diets, by which time the liver selenium concentration had fallen to 0.013 μp,g!g (wet weight), no difference was found between the in vitro uptake of Se75 into the red cells of the blood of the deficient animals and those fed the seleniumsupplemented ration. No difference was found in the sulphydryl content of liver and kidney supernatants for animals fed the different diets. After 11 weeks, but not after 8 weeks, the sulphydryl concentration in plasma from selenium-deficient animals was greater than that found in the plasma of animals receiving the selenium-supplemented diet. Electrophoretic examination of haemoglobin isolated from rats 3 days after injection with Se75-labelled sodium selenite showed that the major haemoglobin bands did not retain Se75 activity. No differences were noted in the haemoglobin patterns for rats differing in selenium status.