The effect of growth retardation and of osteomalacia on the uptake of albumin by bone

Summary ¹²⁵I-labeled rat albumin injected intravenously into rats was taken up by growing bone. Some of this radioactive albumin could be removed from bone by washing with saline, the proportion so removed decreasing from 82.5% at 1 day to 7.4% at 8 days. Both the total radioactivity, and that remaining in bone after saline wash, were reduced when growth was slowed by alteration or restriction of the diet. Although the amount of¹²⁵I albumin in rachitic bone was reduced, autoradiography showed that radioactivity was present in rachitic osteoid. Immunoprecipitation using anti-rat-albumin serum showed that about half of the radioactivity released from normal bone by EDTA was still attached to albumin. These results suggest that albumin plays some part in the growth of bone.Part of this work was presented at a meeting of the Australian Physiological and Pharmacological Society in May 1974