Studies on Monotreme Proteins. V. Amino Acid Sequence of the a-Chain of Haemoglobin From the Platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus

Abstract

Blood from the platypus contained three haemoglobins which were separated by chromatography on DEAE-Sephadex. The major component, Hb-I, was converted to globin and fractionated into the oc-and p-chains by chromatography on eM-cellulose in 8M urea-thiol buffers, and the complete amino acid sequence of the 141 residues of the oc-chain were determined. Peptides derived from the oc-chain by tryptic digestion were isolated by paper ionophoresis and chromatography. The amino acid sequences were determined by the dansyl-Edman procedure or by further digestion with other enzymes.