A New Haemoglobin Variant in Zebu Cattle

Abstract

Haemoglobin polymorphism in different animal species is reported by several investigators: Cabannes and Serain 1956, Bangham 1957, Grimes et al. 1957, Salisbury and Shreffler 1957, Harris and Warren 1955, Lehmann 1959, Huisman et al. 1959, Khanolkar et al. 1963 and Naik et al. 1964. Eleven out of 14 British cattle breeds studied by Bangham (1957) showed only Hb—A. Many cattle breeds studied by us in India showed both Hb—A and Hb—B. Haemoglobin study in most of the animal species is limited to a few samples which have revealed the commonly occurring variants. The first new variant in the adult Zebu cattle (B. indicus) was discovered in our laboratory in 1959 and was called Hb—X. A similar variant called Hb—C was reported in U.S.A. by Crocket etal. (1963) in imported Brahman cattle and Brahman-Hereford crosses. The discovery of the new variant prompted us to survey a larger number of cattle to establish its frequency in various Indian breeds and also to look for more variants. This presentation describes one more new haemoglobin variant detected in Zebu cattle.