Abstract
PROF. R. DENNELL suggests in his letter in Nature of August 27 that quinone tanning of protein structures may be of wide occurrence in the invertebrates. During investigations of structural proteins in the vertebrates and invertebrates, I have found evidence of quinone-tanned proteins in the central capsule membrane of Thalassicola, the external cortical layer of the cuticle in Ascaris lumbricoides, the chætæ of Aphrodite, the byssus1 and periostracum of Mytilus edule, the byssus of Dreissensia polymorpha and in the egg cases of various selachian fishes. There are numerous other structures, such as the winter egg cases of planarians and the egg cases of various molluscs and earthworms which suggest, by their colour, the presence of aromatic-tanned protein. Ellerby2 has evidence for quinone tanning in the cyst wall of eelworms.
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References
Brown, Exp. Cell Res., Supp., 1, 351 (1949).
Ellerby, Nature, 151, 302 (1946).
Pryor, Proc. Roy. Soc., B, 128, 378 (1940).
Pryor, Russell and Todd, Biochem. J., 40, 627 (1946).
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BROWN, C. Quinone Tanning in the Animal Kingdom. Nature 165, 275 (1950). https://doi.org/10.1038/165275b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/165275b0
