Induction and repression of genes of the rat small intestine mucosa with excess and insufficiency of alimentary iron.

Three-month-old Wistar rats were fed with either an iron-deficient diet for 21 days or an iron-excessive diet for 10 days. Fifty thousand clones of a cDNA library of small intestine mucosa were hybridized with two radioactive samples synthesized on mRNA from the small intestine of rats fed with iron-excessive or iron-deficient diets. As a result, genes were found with mRNA level depending on the content of alimentary iron.