Serum ferritin and iron accumulation in ffe/+ mice. (A) Ferritin levels were measured in serum obtained from 3 6-month-old control mice and from 2 to 3 ffe/+ mice of the specified age. (B) Serum transferrin saturation was measured in 2 6-month-old control mice and 4 6-month-old ffe/+ mice. Samples from each mouse were measured in triplicate and the data from mice of similar ages were pooled. The error bars represent standard error of the mean. (C,D) Blood smears from 4-week-old +/+ mice (C) and ffe/+ mice were stained with Wright-Giemsa. Red arrow indicates hypochronic red blood cells; black arrows, target cells. (E,F) Sections of liver from 1-year-old wild-type (+/+) and ffe/+ mice stained with Prussian Blue to visualize accumulated iron. Image was taken using a Zeiss Axiophot2 using a 40× Plan Neofluar air objective with a 0.74 numerical aperture (CarlZeiss, Thornwood, NY). Image was captured using a Photometrics CoolSNAPfx camera (Image Processing Solutions, North Reading, MA) and IPLab Advanced Image Analysis Software Version 3.9.5r3 (BD Biosciences, Rockville, MD). Subsequent image processing was done using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software (Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA).