The Free Amino-Groups of Soluble Feather Keratin

Abstract

FEATHER keratin can be made soluble by extraction with urea and reducing agents or by oxidation with performic acid, and it has been shown that the resulting solutions contain particles with a small distribution of weight and charge and a molecular weight of 10,000^1,2. Rougvie³ oxidized feather keratin directly with peracetic acid and similarly found the soluble particles to have a molecular weight of 10,000. He also made the important observation that fibres reconstituted from the oxidized material gave X-ray diffraction patterns with much of the detail of those of the original feather.