First study on iron complexes in blood and organ samples from thalassaemic and normal laboratory mice using Moessbauer spectroscopy

In this paper, blood and tissues samples from one normal and one thalassaemic lab-mice were studied using 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy at 78K for the first time. In contrast to human patients, these laboratory mice did not receive any medical treatment, thus the iron components present in the samples are not altered. The measured Moessbauer spectra of the blood, liver and spleen samples of the thalassaemic mouse were found to be different in the shape and iron content as compared to the corresponding spectra of the normal mouse. This result demonstrates the further exploitation of the thalassaemic mouse model to study thalassaemia in more details by means of Moessbauer spectroscopy.