Chelation in metal intoxication. IV. Removal of chromium from organs of experimentally poisoned animals.

In an attempt to find more reliable therapeutic or preventive agents for industrial chromium poisoning, some structurally different metal binding agents were screened for their ability to mobilize chromium from liver, kidney, brain, and testes (in vivo) and their subcellular fractions (in vitro), together with the blood corpuscles of experimentally intoxicated animals. Ethylenedinitrilotetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) were quite successful in vivo, while ascorbic acid and 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenyl alanine (L-DOPA) were more effective in vitro. No relationship could be observed between the structure or the molecular weight of the various chelating agents examined and their ability to remove chromium from either the tissue or their subcellular fractions.