Hafnium binding to rat serum transferrin

Using the TDPAC-technique binding parameters for Hf were determined afterin vivo uptake of¹⁸¹Hf in rat plasma. As much as 98.5% of the metal ions proved to be bound to protein, essentially to transferrin. The main fraction of the¹⁸¹Hf ions experiences a well defined electric quadrupole perturbation frequency (vQ1=(1516 ± 15)MHz, δ₁=(5.3 ± 0.8)%) connected with a marked relaxation damping (λ = (46 ± 8)MHz). The remaining Hf nuclei are subject to a fairly broad distribution of electric field gradients (v_Q2=(1014 ± 37)MHz, δ₂=(16±3)%). The results are compared with data obtained within vitro ¹⁸¹Hf-labeled human transferrin.