“…This issue is comThe serpins are a family of proteins that are widely plex, even at the level of gene copy number. For examdistributed throughout the plant and animal king-ple, there is a single functional a1AT gene in rats (Chao doms, and they perform a diverse array of functions in et al, 1990), cows (Sinha et al, 1992), sheep (Brown et vivo (Potempa et al, 1994). In spite of these functional al., 1989), and primates, including baboons (Kurachi et and evolutionary differences, the various serpin pro-al., 1981) and humans (assuming that ATR is a pseuteins are highly conserved in both primary sequence dogene, Bao et al, 1988).…”