Abstract
THE formation of a circulatory system in the ontogeny of mammals coincides with the appearance of nucleated erythroid cells which are produced in the blood islands of the yolk sac. These cells contain specific embryonic haemoglobins (Hbs) which probably transport oxygen during the earliest stages of mammalian development. Such embryonic Hbs have been demonstrated in man1–5 and several other mammalian species6–8. Structural investigations of these pigments showed them to be tetramers which contain unique α-type or β-type subunits. It was also shown that the embryonic α-type subunits of man, mouse and rabbit have more sequence similarity among each other than between the embryonic and the adult α subunit of the same species, indicating that the divergence of embryonic and adult α subunits is much older than mammalian evolution8.
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BAUER, C., TAMM, R., PETSCHOW, D. et al. Oxygen affinity and allosteric, effects of embryonic mouse haemoglobins. Nature 257, 333–334 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/257333a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/257333a0
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