Preparation of purified myoglobin from skeletal muscle of the guinea pig.

The knowledge of the metabolism and biological function of myoglobin remains very limited. In 1932, Theorell (1) described the crystallization of myoglobin from perfused horse heart. Rossi-Fanelli and Aragona (2) isolated this same protein from a number of domestic animals. Although the purification and crystallization of myoglobin of large mammalian species and the human (3) have been successfully accomplished, the isolation and purification of this pigment from small animal species have not been reported in the literature. The difficulty in the isolation of this protein from common laboratory animals has been one of the barriers in the investigation of myoglobin. This paper will describe a scheme for the preparation of purified myo1 globin from skeletal muscle of the guinea pig.