Studies on the inheritance of electrophoretic forms of transferrins, albumins, prealbumins and plasma esterases of horses.

B Y means of starch gel electrophoresis BRBND and STORMONT (1964) demonstrated 16 different transferrin phenotypes in horses. Family data supported the theory that the observed differences were attributed to the action of six COdominant autosomal alleles designated TfD, TfF, Tf", TfM, Tfo and Tf". The theory of six alleles have been verified by BRBND (1964) and GRSTZER, HESSELIIOLT, MOUSTGAARD and THYMANN (1965). Genetic variations of horse albumin were reported by STORMONT and SUZUKI (1963). They described three different albumin phenotypes A, AB and B controlled by a pair of codominant autosomal alleles, designated a* and aB. The albumin variations were also studied by BRAEND (1964) who used the phenotype symbols AA, AB and BB. Later B R ~ N D and EFREMOV (1965) decided to use the allele symbols AP and AP and called the albumin phenotypes FF, FS and SS. ASHTON (1959) observed at least three prealbumin types in horses. Also BRBND and EFREMOV (1965) found a variation in the prealbumin area in their gels used for albumin typing. However, no attempt has been made to classify the variants and study them genetically. By using starch gel electrophoresis, several multiple forms of esterase have been reported to occur in horse plasma. KAMINSKI and GAJOS (1964) described two intensely stained esterase fractions and two faint zones of activity, but no individual differences were observed among 5 1 horses. OKI, OLIVER and FUNNEL (1 964) found 11 esterase zones in zymograms from 94 horses and reported a variant form of cholinesterase which might be genetically controlled. The present paper is concerned not only with a study of transferrin and albumin phenotypes in horses but also with evidence for several electrophoretic forms of prealbumins and plasma esterases and the basis for their inheritance.