Tetracycline Binding by Skeletal Tissue

¹ Schools of Dentistry and Medicine, University of California Medical Center, San Francisco, California

Skeletal maturation reduced the magnitude of uptake of large doses of tetracycline by the skeleton. The diminished responsiveness of bone did not demonstrably alter the relative importance of the teeth as sites of binding of tetracyclines. The maximal degree of binding of tetracycline by the skeleton was approximately 5 per cent of the administered I.P. dose in young rats and was about 1 per cent in more mature animals.