Proteins of the hard keratins of echidna, hedgehog, rabbit, ox and man

In the accompanying paper it has been shown that two major groups of proteins (low-sulphur and high-sulphur) of ovine wool, horn, and hoof contain similar components although the overall proportions of the groups of proteins and the relative proportions of components within the groups may show significant differences. In the present paper it has been shown for five other species (echidna, hedgehog, rabbit, ox and man) that the hard keratins produced by one animal contain the same groups of protein components but in different relative proportions. The wide apparent differences in the type and relative proportions of the the low-sulphur components which comprise the major constituent proteins of the microfibrils suggest that microfibrils can tolerate a considerable variation in the constituent proteins and still produce functional structures. The low-sulphur protein components are sufficiently well resolved by sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis to make this procedure potentially useful for animal identification and classification.