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Distribution of Vitamin E in the Tissues of the Rat¹

Departments of Anatomy, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, and The University of Rochester, School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, N. Y.

1. A total of 338 bio-assay tests on tissues of rats receiving approximately 4, 100 and 10,000 times the minimal daily requirement of vitamin E reaffirms its wide distribution in the animal body.

2. At the low level of intake, which is considered suboptimal, the heart, lung and spleen possess almost twice as much vitamin E per gram of fresh tissue as the musculature, body fat and other visceral organs (kidney, testis, epididymis, prostate and seminal vesicle), and about four times as much as the liver.

3. At moderately high levels of intake the storage in the viscera, musculature and body fat is augmented three to four and one-half times; the heart, lung and spleen receiving more than other tissues, while that in the liver is increased about fourteen times. The mammary gland concentrates about twice as much E as the liver.

4. At excessively high levels of intake the musculature and liver, respectively, possess about 12 and 150 times the vitamin E storage occurring at the low level of intake. Liver content of the vitamin affords the most useful measure of the previous intake and storage.

5. Despite the wide distribution of vitamin E in the body of the rat, the estimated total storage represents but a small fraction of the vitamin ingested, confirming the suggestion of others that the tocopherol molecule is either ineffectively absorbed or readily broken down in the organism.

Manuscript received 27 August 1941.