Table 1.

Characteristics of 24–26-day-old rats following perinatal copper deficiency

	Males		Females
Characteristics	Cu-adequate	Cu-deficient	Cu-adequate	Cu-deficient
NP-Brain Cu, μg/g	2.24 ± 0.06	0.376 ± 0.039	2.34 ± 0.041	0.352 ± 0.013
P-Brain Cu, μg/g	2.19 ± 0.10	0.377 ± 0.030	2.13 ± 0.050	0.372 ± 0.014
NP-Hemoglobin, g/L	160 ± 2.7	97.5 ± 9.6	139 ± 2.4	72.6 ± 4.8
Est–Blood Fe, μg/g	370 ± 6.0	232 ± 21	395 ± 15	179 ± 10.9
P-Blood in brain, %	0.43	0.77	0.73	1.03

Values are means ± SEM (n = 4). Rats were born to, and nursed by Cu-deficient or Cu-adequate dams. Treatment began 2 weeks prior to parturition. Pups were maintained on the same treatment as their dams until killing. Littermates were either killed by decapitation and not perfused (NP), or perfused transcardially to remove blood from brain (P). Blood iron was estimated from hemoglobin concentration and regression analysis (Fig. 1). Blood content in brain was estimated by determining the amount of iron lowered by perfusion (μg/g) (Fig. 2) relative to the total iron in blood for non-perfused littermates. Dietary treatment effects were tested by unpaired Student's t-test. Compared with Cu-adequate rats, Cu-deficient rats had lower brain copper, hemoglobin and estimated blood iron concentrations, p < 0.05. Perfusion did not lower brain copper content, p > 0.05.