[125I] triiodothyronine in the rat brain: evidence for neural localization and axonal transport derived from thaw-mount film autoradiography.

Previous thaw-mount light microscopic autoradiographic studies have shown that intravenously administered [125I] triiodothyronine is saturably concentrated and retained for at least 10 hours in discrete neural systems in the rat brain. To survey the brain more completely and to gain information about the time course of labeling, serial thaw-mount film autoradiograms were prepared from rat brains obtained at intervals through 48 hours after intravenous injection of high specific activity [125I] triiodothyronine. Parallel biochemical studies of whole brain homogenate extracts revealed that, at all time intervals, the label in the brain was mainly due to triiodothyronine itself (80%), or other organic iodocompounds (15%), but probably not due to free [125I] iodide (3%), which is rapidly transported out of the brain. The highly reproducible, well-defined labeling patterns seen on film indicated a widespread but selective localization of the hormone. At early times after intravenous injection of [125I] triiodothyronine, label was nonuniformly and prominently concentrated in selected regions of gray matter; evidence for saturability of hormone processing was obtained in competition studies with unlabeled triiodothyronine. Discrete labeling of fiber tracts (usually after 10 hours) left some regions of white matter conspicuously unlabeled. At 48 hours, many originally labeled gray regions showed markedly diminished or virtually complete loss of radioactivity, whereas others became newly or more prominently labeled. At that time, certain fiber tracts were also conspicuously labeled. The observed changing profiles of regional labeling over time are best explained by movement of the hormone from original sites of saturable incorporation in specific nuclei, to terminal fields, through the mechanism of axonal transport.