Investigation of Heavy Metals Accumulation in Different Tissues of Laboratory Rat

In recent decades, industrial, agricultural and urban activities have caused pollution and accumulation of heavy metals in soils and plants which directly or indirectly affects humans and animals lives. Nowadays, pollutant accumulation in most agricultural products is much higher than the permissible limit due to the excessive use of fertilizers.
In this study, the accumulation and distribution of heavy metals were investigated in different organs of rats under various nutritional conditions. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with greenhouse strawberry treatments in three groups. Different groups of rats (27 rats) were fed strawberries infected with heavy metals by oral gavage within a three-month period.Regarding the average weight of rats, 0.5 gram of fresh strawberry was considered for each rat.
Results showed that the concentration of studied heavy metals in the strawberries were 7.7, 26 and 3.2 mg / kg for cadmium, lead and copper respectively, which were higher than Iranian standard level. The statistical results showed that there was a significant difference between the different organs in the intake of the heavy metals, so that in the infected treatment, the most and lowest amounts of cadmium were in the kidney (0.41 g / day) and the brain (0.24 g / day), respectively. Heavy metals caused reduction in the rate of weight gain of rats. The accumulation of these elements were higher in the kidney, liver and pancreas than other organs. The least accumulation of heavy metals was related to the rat’s brain, while highest amount of the heavy metals accumulation was in the kidney