The in-vitro uptake of zinc by blood cells in rats with long-term inflammatory stress

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the in vitro uptake of zinc by blood cells, in an attempt to distinguish between those conditions in which low plasma zinc concentrations are due to inflammatory stress, and those which are due to true zinc deficiency. Inflammation induced by intramuscular injection of turpentine caused a significant reduction in plasma albumin concentrations, which persisted until the end of the study (2 weeks). It also caused a reduction in the plasma zinc concentration which was most marked during the first few days. A smaller difference persisted until the end of the study. When the serum zinc concentration was corrected for the hypoalbuminaemia, the changes in serum zinc concentration after the first 4 days of turpentine were small and mainly non-significant. The in vitro uptake of zinc by erythrocytes obtained from animals with inflammation did not increase, whereas the uptake was increased in cells obtained from animals with true zinc deficiency. Therefore this study suggests a method that can probably differentiate between an apparent zinc deficiency due to inflammatory stress and a real zinc deficiency, but additional experiments to validate this method should be performed.