THE COMPLETE AMINO ACID SEQUENCE OF THE a-LACTALBUMIN FROM A MARSUPIAL

a-Lactalbumin was purified from a whey protein fraction of the milk of the red-necked wallaby (Macropus rufogrisem). The complete amino acid sequence was determined from the results of automatic sequenator analyses of the intact protein, the three cyanogen bromide fragments, and of peptides generated from the larger, COOH-terminal CNBr fragment by digestion with trypsin or staphylococcal protease. This is the first sequence to be determined of an a-lactalbumin from a marsupial and iffers from known eutherian alactalbumins in size and locations of deletions in alignments with the homologous type c lysozymes, as well as in having amino acid substitutions at 8 sites that are invariant in known eutherian proteins. Some corrections are also reported for two regions of sequence in both bovine and goat a-lactalbumins. The new and previously published information on a-lactalbumin sequences is analyzed in relation to the evolutionary history of the a-lactalbumin line as well as the relationship of structure to function in these proteins.