Abstract
This study is an investigation on the Keratin of hair coming from 51 non-human Primates belonging to 11 families and 37 different species, using isoelectric focusing on thin layer of polyacrylmide gel (0.5 mm) in pH range 2.5–7.0 followed by silver staining.
Our results highlight that animals belonging to the same species have identical isoelectrophoretic patterns. It was proved forLemur fulvus, Macaca fascicularis, Cercopithecus aethiops, Gorilla gorilla.
Instead, regarding different species belonging to the same genus, we can say that the pattern obtained was not always characteristic of the species to which the protein belonged. In fact, whereas some species of theCercopithecus, Macaca andPapio genus show significantly different patterns, other species ofCercopithecus, Macaca, Papio, Cebus andSaimiri show identifical patterns. On the other hand, patterns belonging to different genus nearly always showed more marked differences. As for man, by means of this technique, it is possible to show a high number of polypeptides in the 3–4 pH range for non-human Primates as well.
Thus, species belonging to different families and genus can always be distinguished; on the other hand, it is not always possible for species of the same genus (e.g.Cebus, Papio).
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Folin, M., Zanella, P. & Contiero, C. An application of isoelectric focusing to non-human primates hair Keratin. Hum. Evol. 8, 1–9 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02436460
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02436460