Hair as a biopsy material. V. Hair metal as an index of hepatic metal in rats: copper and zinc.

Hair copper in 500 day-old adult rats was found to correlate directly with copper in whole liver (P less than 0.001) and the subcellular liver nuclear (P less than 0.022), and cytosol fractions (P less than 0.001). An inverse correlation was found between copper in liver microsomes and plasma cholesterol (P less than 0.044). Similar data analysis for zinc showed no significant correlations (P greater than 0.05). The determination of copper in hair may be useful for assessing total liver copper content in human beings. Copper in liver microsomes may participate in the control of plasma cholesterol.