Besides carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, numerous other elements and their compounds are significant in the body of humans and other animals. Accumulation of some elements and their compounds is recognized by clinical and biochemical evaluation. The physical-chemical properties and topical characteristics of elements in tissues may play a crucial role in evaluation their effect on human body. The ^57^Fe M&#xf6;ssbauer measurement was used for evaluation of iron&#x2013;oxide biomagnetic nanoparticles composition and properties. Absorption spectra of the powdered spleen recorded at 77K and 300K were measured and subsequently analyzed. From fitted data it is possible to obtain material composition as well as discuss the mean particle size (received from decrease hyperfine field in comparison with bulk value)

Jan Jakubovsky

Martin Kopani

Martin Weis

English

Nature Precedings

Analysis of Human Spleen Contamination
Martin Kopani1, Martin Weis2, Jan Jakubovsky1
1Department of Pathology, Comenius University, School of Medicine, Bratislava, Slovakia; 2Department of Physics, Slovak University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia
Introduction
Besides carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, numerous other elements and their compounds are significant in the body of humans and other animals. Some elements get into the internal environment of living bodies, accumulate in various organs and disturb systems that participate in their elimination; or, on the contrary, they 
accumulate in the bodies because of congenital or acquired metabolic disturbances. Iron can be found in human body mainly in the form of ferritin. This protein creates spherical formation with the size of 12 nm. The core of ferritin is 8 nm big and consists of ferrihydride - 5Fe2O3.9H2O. The role of polypeptide coat 
of ferritin (Ft-H form) is to catalyze Fe2+ ions to Fe3+ ions. Ft-H form of polypeptide coat helps to mineralization of iron. Studies performed via nanodiffraction showed that physiological ferritin is composed from crystalline ferrihydride and amorphous iron hydroxide [1]. In the core of pathological ferritin prevailed 
wüstite (FeO) and magnetite – like structure. In excessive volume of iron in the organism, the iron is stored in cells in the form of hemosiderin [2]. Hemosiderin is considered to be a proteolytic product of ferritin [3]. Besides the differences of diffraction image between the samples of hemosiderin it is found also some 
differences in their element composition [4,5]. The 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy enables to determine the composition of iron compound in the sample. Position, number and intensity of absorbed radiation give us information about chemical composition of the sample. Mössbauer spectra and their temperature 
dependence are characteristic for each iron compound. Biomimetic approach to material synthesis exhibits novel properties. Magnetic materials attract considerable interest both from biological point of view as well as their technological application [6]. 
Results and Discussion
In the specimens from the adult human spleen, the EDX microanalysis showed the presence of silicon in macrophages of the red pulp (Fig. 1,3). Evaluation of the same specimens in polarized light microscopy did it not uncover. The particles in the spleen were 10-30 μm large. Crystals of SiO2 1-5 μm large are 
considered to be pathogenic. Shalaeva et al. [7] demonstrated that from the point of silicosis there is no substantial difference between amorphous and crystalline SiO2. Our measurements at another occasion with the help of powder diffraction indicated both, its crystalline and amorphous phase (Fig. 2,4). Our specimens 
contained silicon, from the viewpoint of silicosis pathogenesis, of inert nature and people whose spleens were investigated, did not show manifestations of silicosis.  That is why we suspected that the silicon could have got incorporated into the samples during processing. For this reason we used spleen specimens of 
dead newborns as controls. There was no silicon present in those specimens. Thus we assume that the silicon must have got into the organism from the external environment. As a foreign material, it was excluded from the blood stream by the spleen clearance function [8]. Different sizes of silicon particles in different 
parts of the organism were described in electron microscopy with EDAX analysis by Kodaka et al.[9].
Fig. 1 The particle contains sulphur, aluminum, silicon, chlorium, 
potassium, calcium and copper. SEM micrograph, line size is 10 μm. Fig. 3 The particles contain silicon, sulphur, chlorium, potassium, calcium, ironand copper. SEM micrograph, line size is 10 μm. 
Fig. 2 XRD pattern taken from spleen contains aluminium, silicon, 
sulphur, chlorine, potassium, calcium. The origin of diffraction peaks is
unclear. 
Fig. 4 XRD pattern taken from spleen contains silicon, phosphorus, 
sulphur, chlorine, potassium, calcium and iron.   
-1 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0
0
1 0 0
2 0 0
3 0 0
4 0 0
5 0 0
6 0 0
7 0 0
4
5
,4
4
2
,7
2
3
5
,8
8
3
0
,0
4
2 8 ,9 6
2 8 ,2
2 7 ,8 4
2 1 ,8
In
te
n
s
it
y
 [
c
o
u
n
ts
]
2    [ d e g ]
6 4 7 8 5 5 - 1
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 6 0 70
1 00
2 00
3 00
4 00
5 00
6 00
7 00
8 00
9 00 6 3 0 94 7
5 ,9 6
1 7 ,0 8
4 0 ,5 2
In
te
n
s
it
y
 [
c
o
u
n
ts
]
2   [d e g ]
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
0 ,8 8
0 ,9 0
0 ,9 2
0 ,9 4
0 ,9 6
0 ,9 8
1 ,0 0
R
e
la
ti
v
e
 t
ra
n
s
m
is
si
o
n
V e lo c ity  (m m /s )
-8 -6 - 4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
0 ,9 8 4
0 ,9 8 6
0 ,9 8 8
0 ,9 9 0
0 ,9 9 2
0 ,9 9 4
0 ,9 9 6
0 ,9 9 8
1 ,0 0 0
R
e
la
tiv
e
 t
ra
n
sm
is
si
o
n
V e lo c ity  (m m /s )
330.40.42
670.680.371
Fraction 
[%]
Quadrupole
splitting [mm/s]
Isomer shift 
[mm/s]
Component
Tab. 2 Results of isomer shift and quadrupole splitting of spleen tissue from 
hemochromatosis patient. EDX analysis reveals spectral lines of Mg, Al, P, 
Si, S, Ca, K, Zn and Fe.
500.460.372
500.80.361
Fraction
[%]
Quadrupole
splitting [mm/s]
Isomer shift 
[mm/s]
Component
Tab. 1 Results of isomer shift and quadrupole splitting of spleen tissue after 
splenectomy with no signs of spleen disease. EDX analysis reveals spectral 
lines of Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Ca, K, Zn and Fe. 
600.340.312
400.600.321
Fraction 
[%]
Quadrupole
splitting [mm/s]
Isomer shift 
[mm/s]
Component
Tab. 3 Results of isomer shift and quadrupole splitting of spleen tissue with 
diagnosis of hereditary spherocytosis. EDX analysis reveals spectral lines of 
Mg, P, Ca and Fe. 
0.800.38FePO4
0.710.35
Ferrihydrite
5 Fe2O3 · 9 H20
0.690.36
Feroxyhyte
d-FeO(OH)
0.530.37
Lepidocrocite
g-FeO(OH)
Quadrupole splitting 
[mm/s]
Isomer shift 
[mm/s]
Phase of iron oxide
List of possible phases of the iron oxides present in the studied tissues.
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
0 ,9 8 4
0 ,9 8 8
0 ,9 9 2
0 ,9 9 6
1 ,0 0 0
R
e
la
ti
v
e
 t
ra
n
s
m
is
s
io
n
V e lo c ity  (m m /s )
Discussion
The investigation of Perls’ Prussian Blue stained slides by light microscope indicates iron depositions in samples with diagnosis of hemochromatosis and hereditary spherocytosis. EDX 
microanalysis reveals multielemental composition. The core in normal tissue is ferrihydrite - 5Fe2O3.9H2O with various amount of phosphorus. Sample of spleen tissue with no signs of spleen 
disease can contain ferrihydrite (Tab. 1, component 1). Presence of vestigial amounts of some elements significantly influences oxidative-reduction status of iron, its structure, chemical 
composition and stoichiometry [10,11]. Phosphates influence extensively the morphology of iron oxides, if their precursor is ferrihydrite. The amount of phosphorus in iron oxides influences 
iron oxidation [12]. The interaction of iron Fe(II) with ferrihydrite leads to precipitation of goethite, lepidocrocite and magnetite [13, 14]. The magnetite and goethite-like form of hemosiderin
that has been observed in some pathological tissues [15] was not detected (Tab. 2,3). The significant source of Fe(II) is the perturbation in erythrophagocytosis, which plays role in several 
diseases, including hemochromatosis [16]. We suppose that pH and time are significant factors influence biomineralization of iron in the human spleen. 
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