Bovine Fetal Hemoglobin. I. Postnatal Persistence and Relation to Adult Hemoglobins

Abstract

SUMMARY The postnatal persistence of bovine fetal Hemoglobin (F) and its relation to the adult Hemoglobins A and B were investigated by electrophoretic methods. At birth, F made up 41 to 100% of the total hemoglobin of 23 calves. The amount of F diminished rapidly and was replaced entirely by Hemoglobin A in 14 bull calves and four heifer calves at the average ages of 65 and 97 days, respectively. The disappearance of Hemo- globin F from the blood of five calves (Guernseys, Jerseys, Brown Swiss) was obscured by the simultaneous appearance of Hemoglobin B, which has the same eleetrophoretic mobility as F under the conditions used. Comparisons of electrophoretic mobilities in the pH range 6.5-9.0 showed that Hemoglobin A has a greater net positive charge than B and F throughout, but that the net positive charge of Hemoglobin B is appreciably greater than that of F only below pH 7.4. Above this pH, B and F migrate on paper electrophoretie strips at essentially the same rate. It has been known for a long time that the hemoglobins of the fetus and adult of various species differ. KSrber (19), in 1866, first demonstrated differences in the resistance of fetal and maternal hemoglobins to denaturation by acids and alkalis. More recently, fetal and adult hemoglobins have been found to differ in such properties as solubility (15, 17, 24), electrophoretic mobility (1, 4, 13, 25), ultraviolet absorption spectrum (4, 16), crystal form (15, 18), oxygen dissocia~ tion curves (3, 20, 21), behavior of monomolecular layers (14), and amino acid composition (7, 10, 23). Some of the comparisons were made with human hemo- globins , others with sheep, goat, and cattle pigments. Although observations to determine the postnatal duration of fetal hemo- globin in the blood of human infants have been reported (4, 14), the authors are not aware of any studies with this specific objective having been made with other species. The object of the work reported here was to determine how long the fetal hemoglobin of the calf persists postnatally, and to determine its electro- phoretic properties in relation to bovine Hemoglobin A, the more common perma- nent type, and Hemoglobin B, a second adult type recently found to occur either alone or simultaneously with A in some individuals of certain breeds of cattle (Bangham, 2; Salisbury and Shreflter, 22; Grimes, Duncan, and Lassiter, 8). Our earlier tentative designation of F (8) for bovine Hemoglobin B was based on the possibility that it was identical to fetal hemoglobin. The findings presented in this report point out the need for a revision of our nomenclature.