Biochemical and genetic studies on rabbit hemoglobin. II. Electrophoretic polymorphism of the alpha-chain.

A genetic polymorphism of rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) hemoglobin alpha chain is demonstrated by means of acid starch gel electrophoresis. The polymorphism is not detected by isoelectric focusing and may be based upon neutral for neutral amino acid substitutions in accordance with previous findings by means of amino acid sequencing. Segregation analysis was performed on 15 matings with 49 offspring and confirmed the initial genetic hypothesis of three common codominant alleles at an autosomal locus. The calculated gene frequencies in a random sample of 86 unrelated individuals are HBA1 = 0.73, HBA2 = 0.22, and HBA*3 = 0.05.