Figure 3. α-Syn^−/− mice are iron deficient.

(A–C) Age and sex-matched α-syn^−/− and α-syn^+/+ mice were injected with ⁵⁹FeCl₃ intravenously and sacrificed after 1 or 24 hours. Tf-⁵⁹Fe counts in the spleen and femur of α-syn^−/− mice are significantly higher than α-syn^+/+ controls after 1 hour, and 2-fold reduced compared to the control value after 24 hours especially in the spleen. Likewise, Tf-⁵⁹Fe counts in the enucleated eyeball of α-syn^−/− mice are significantly higher than α-syn^+/+ controls after 1 hour. (⁵⁹Fe counts in each organ were normalized to plasma counts in the respective mice). (n=3; **p<0.01, *p<0.05). (D & E) Probing of brain lysates from α-syn^−/− mice with specific antibodies shows 2-fold decrease in ferritin and 4-fold decrease in TfR levels relative to α-syn^+/+ controls. Reactivity for α-syn is as expected (lanes 1–3 vs 4–6). (F–I) A similar evaluation of spleen and liver tissue lysates from α-syn^−/− mice shows 2.5-fold reduction in spleen ferritin and no change in liver ferritin relative to α-syn^+/+ controls (lanes 1–3 vs 4–6). β-actin served as an internal control for quantification by densitometry. (n=3; values are mean ± SEM of the indicated n. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, *** p<0.001. Note: lysates in panel H were fractionated on the same gel and rearranged using Adobe Photoshop.