Ferritin in Serum

Abstract

FERRITIN is the major iron storage protein in the body. Although it is found in all tissues there is little quantitative information about its distribution. Measurements of non-heme iron concentrations indicate a particularly large amount in the liver, spleen and bone marrow. Each ferritin molecule is thought to consist of a spherical protein shell of molecular weight about 450,000 made up of 24 subunits with a variable amount of iron as a crystalline core of ferric-oxide-phosphate. The study of tissue ferritins has shown that each molecule may accumulate up to about 4000 atoms of iron, and the fully saturated protein . . .