Identification of PRE-γ-GLOBIN

Abstract

A pre-γ-globin species was identified by high performance liquid chromatography in platyrrhine primates. Although pre-γ-globin has not been observed in human hemoglobin, its identification in platyrrhine hemoglobin was facilitated by the functional inactivation of one of the duplicated γ-globin genes in platyrrhines, which simplified the high performance liquid chromatography elution pattern. Part, but not all, of the pre-γ was glutathionyl γ2-globinI and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry was used to demonstrate that the glutathionyl residue was located on cysteine 93. As this residue is invariant in primates, it is predicted that the formation of glutathionyl γ-globin will be seen in all primate hemoglobins under appropriate conditions.