Hurley L S, Keen C L, Lönnerdal B
Ciba Found Symp. 1980;79:227-45. doi: 10.1002/9780470720622.ch12.
The essentially of copper for normal fetal and neonatal development has been well documented, although copper metabolism during this period is poorly understood. The dietary requirement for copper is influenced by genetic background. The neurological phenotypic characteristics of the mutant gene quaking (qk) in mice resemble in part those of copper-deficient animals. Supplementation of the maternal diet with copper during pregnancy and lactation, or during lactation alone, greatly reduced the frequency of tremors characteristic of these mutants, and brought the otherwise low copper concentrations in the brain to normal. Prenatal copper supplementation of crinkled (cr) mice increased neonatal survival and produced nearly normal development of skin and hair. Non-supplemented cr/cr mice showed anaemia at 21 days of age which disappeared later. Similarly, copper concentration in liver and hair was low in young but normal in old cr/cr mice. However, activity of copper--zinc-superoxide dismutase (Cu-ZnSOD) remained low even at 60 days of age. Copper supplementation brought both SOD activity and copper concentration of liver and hair to normal. The errors in copper metabolism produced by qk and cr appear to be expressed at different periods of development. The hypothesis that there are rapid changes in the metabolism of copper is supported by the observation that molecular distribution of copper in rat intestine changes drastically during the neonatal period.
铜对于胎儿和新生儿正常发育的重要性已有充分记录，尽管人们对这一时期的铜代谢了解甚少。铜的膳食需求量受遗传背景影响。小鼠中突变基因颤抖（qk）的神经表型特征部分类似于缺铜动物。在怀孕和哺乳期或仅在哺乳期给母鼠补充铜，可大大降低这些突变体特有的震颤频率，并使大脑中原本较低的铜浓度恢复正常。对蜷缩（cr）小鼠进行产前铜补充可提高新生儿存活率，并使皮肤和毛发发育接近正常。未补充铜的cr/cr小鼠在21日龄时出现贫血，之后贫血消失。同样，幼年cr/cr小鼠肝脏和毛发中的铜浓度较低，但老年小鼠则正常。然而，即使在60日龄时，铜锌超氧化物歧化酶（Cu-ZnSOD）的活性仍较低。补充铜可使SOD活性以及肝脏和毛发中的铜浓度恢复正常。qk和cr所导致的铜代谢错误似乎在不同发育阶段表现出来。新生大鼠肠道中铜的分子分布在新生儿期急剧变化，这一观察结果支持了铜代谢存在快速变化的假说。
