Cattle and sheep eyes were obtained from the abattoir and dissected within 12 hr. of the death of the animals. Whale eyes were obtained from sperm whales caught in the Antarctic region, and had been stored (whaling ship 521l
two last-mentioned papers it was shown that zinc and a number of other metals occurred in nondialysable form in melanin-protein fractions from the eyes of cattle and perch. The accumulation in these fractions was sufficient to account for most of the zinc in the pigmented tissues.The present work attempts to throw light on the combination between metallic ions and melanin or melanin-protein complexes. The interactions of zinc and other metals with various systems which transform tyrosine or 3:4-dihydroxyphenyl-Lalanine (dopa) to melanin have been studied. Arnow (1938a) showed that a pigment could be obtained by bubbling atmospheric oxygen through an alkaline solution of dopa. Raper (1927) showed that dopa is an intermediate product in the oxidation of tyrosine to melanin by tyrosinase. It is probable that most animal melanins are synthesized by this series of reactions. As the absorption spectrum of the pigment produced by the oxidation of dopa resembles that of natural melanins (Arnow, 1938b) the structures are probably analogous, if not identical. The artificial pigment is therefore suitable for investigating the combination between metals and melanin in the absence of protein.Winternitz (1918) showed that an extract of pig uveal tract catalysed the darkening of tyrosine suspensions, and Calkins (cited by Lerner & Fitzpatrick, 1950) reported the presence of tyrosinase and dopa-oxidase in ox ciliary bodies. It was therefore decided to try to extract from cattle irises and ciliary bodies an enzyme system catalysing the oxidation of tyrosine to melanin, and to use this system to study, in vitro, the effect of metals on melanin formed from tyrosine in the presence of protein.
MATERIALS AND METHODSReagents and apparatus. Reagents of A.R. grade were used whenever possible. All aqueous solutions were prepared with twice-distilled water, the final distillation being from, and into, Pyrex-glass vessels. All glass vessels were washed first with 50 % (v/v) HNO3, then with twice-distilled water, and dried in a stainless-steel oven. Subsequently they were scrubbed or rinsed in hot tap water, and then rinsed with twice-distilled water and dried.Preparation of dopa-melanin solution. An aqueous solution of dopa (approx. 0-01 %) was allowed to oxidize in air for several months. The resulting solution was diluted to approximately the original volume. On evaporating 10 ml.of the diluted solution at 500, a dry residue (8-2 mg.) was obtained. The absorption spectrum ofthe solution is given in Fig. 1. The curve corresponds well with that given by Arnow (1938b) for the absorption in the visible region of his dopamelanin. The small peak at 280 m,u. may be due to unchanged dopa (cf. Mason, 1948).
The results of showed zinc to be present in the choroid, and other pigmented tissues, of the eyes of fresh-water fishes from Lake Constance, in amounts as much as one hundred times those in similar tissues from mammalian eyes (figures for which axe given by Bowness, Morton, Shakir & Stubbs, 1952). Very high concentrations of zinc in the pigmented eye tissues were reported by Leiner & Leiner for each of nine species of fish from Lake Constance; indeed, many were higher than any previously reported to occur normally in living matter (cf. Monier-Williams, 1949). The highest
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