Copper metabolism in mottled mouse mutants: copper therapy of brindled (Mobr) mice

Abstract

Copper therapy was applied to brindled mouse mutants, which suffer from lethal hypocupraemia, by using cuprous and cupric solutions. The method of treatment was a single subcutaneous injection of 50 microgram of copper at 7 days of age. Early effects of the dose were: prevention of the tremors and spasms seen in untreated mutants, raising to normal and near-normal of caeruloplasmin oxidase and lysyl oxidase activities and pigmentation of skin and fur. Growth of mutants was retarded up to 23 days of age, but thereafter they rapidly gained weight to be nearly normal by 60 days of age. At 3 days after injection, copper concentrations in previously deficient mutant organs apart from liver were at least as much as those of treated normals, which had remained unchanged. Copper in mutant livers had increased only slightly in comparison with the normal control. A state of copper deficiency recurred in mutant tissues by 25 days after injection. A solution of Cu+, retained as such by an alkyl polyether, and sebacic acid resulted in greater growth rates after 23 days than did three other copper treatments. Cu+ may have resulted in an improved growth response owing to it being more readily metabolized than C12+. Delayed release of copper from the site of injection may have played an important role.