Bioavailable copper levels can be decreased in vivo by copper chelating agents.

<p>Low, medium and high doses of TM (A and B), penicillamine (C and D) and trientine (E and F) were administered i.p. to healthy mice over 5 days. Mice were sacrificed on days 0, 2 and 5 Plasma ceruloplasmin (Cp) was assayed (A, C and E), and liver Cu levels analyzed (B, D and F). For Cu levels n = 3 mice/group. For Cp assays there were 11 mice for TM at day 0, these mice were divided into groups and given different doses of TM; 1 mouse/TM dose was culled and sampled at day 2 (n = 1/group) for each of the three doses; 3 mice were sampled for each of the 200 µg and 1000µg TM doses (n = 3/group), and 2 mice sampled for the 500µg TM treatment at day 5 (n = 2/group). For penicillamine and trientine there were 4 mice per treatment dose at day 0 (n = 4) and 1 mouse sampled at each time point for each dose (n = 1/group). Where possible, data is shown as mean ± SEM.