Abstract
MELANINS can be extracted from hair by dilute caustic soda solution and purified by chromatography on calcium and magnesium carbonates1,2. The extraction with 0.05 N caustic soda is easier with rabbit hair and sheep wool than with human head hair. Owing to this ease of extraction, which is important in order to obtain pure melanins, but also because we had in mind an analysis of the phenogenesis of melanic pigmentation3,4, we have studied chiefly melanins from rabbits of known genotypic constitution. Nevertheless, the similarity of the data for mammalian hair melanins generally with those for rabbit hair melanins suggests that our conclusions are applicable to hair melanins in general and to melanins of other tissues.
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SERRA, J. Constitution of Hair Melanins. Nature 157, 771 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157771a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157771a0
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