A Carbonic Anhydrase Variant in the Baboon

Abstract

WHILE examining red-cell hæmolysates from baboons by starch-gel electrophoresis, using the discontinuous tris-borate system of Poulik¹, individual variations were noticed in the main non-hæmoglobin protein (NHP) band after staining the starch gels with amidoschwarz. In most animals there was a single strong band in a position considerably behind the main NHP band of human hæmolysates run in parallel. In a few animals, however, only a faint band was seen in this position but there was a strong one at approximately the same level as the main band in man. In other animals both the slow (S) and fast (F) bands were present (Fig. 1). Fifty laboratory animals, originally caught in Kenya, yielded 4 examples of the Ftype and 11 of the F + Stype while the remaining 35 had only the slow main band. The proportions of the three types in the two sexes were closely similar in 17 animals the sex of which was recorded. Taxonomic identification was not easy because many of the animals were immature, but the majority was considered to be Papio cynocephalus and a few possibly P. anubis. In a further 126 hæmolysates from baboons from the South-west Foundation, San Antonio, Texas, there were only 4 SFtypes, the remainder having the Sband alone. Seventy-five animals were P. cynocephalus, 36 were from an inbred strain of uncertain origin and 15 were hybrids between these two stocks. Since the San Antonio P. cynocephaluswere known to have been imported from Kenya, the rarity of Fvariants in the sample suggests that its incidence may show wide local variations in wild baboon populations ; however, we have no details about the sampling involved in catching them. Only the Stype was found in 21 specimens of P. hamadryas.