The organ-specificity of ferritin in human and horse liver and spleen.

1. Ferritin was isolated from human and horse spleen and liver, and apoferritin prepared therefrom. 2. The electrophoretic mobilities of the four apoferritins were determined on polyacrylamide gels and on cellulose acetate strips, and all found to be equal. 3. Homologous ferritins share reactions of identity in immunodiffusion experiments, whereas heterologous ferritins show only partial identity. 4. The subunit molecular weight of each of the apoferritins was determined by polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis in sodium dodecyl sulphate and by chromatography on agarose columns in 6m-guanidine-HCl. A value of approx. 18500 was found in all cases. The proteins all had sedimentation coefficients of 17-18S. It thus seems that they have identical quaternary structures. 5. The amino acid compositions of the proteins revealed distinct differences both between organs and between species. This was confirmed by analysis of the tryptic peptide patterns, where it was found that about one-third of the peptides were common to the four proteins and the other two-thirds varied from protein to protein. 6. It is concluded that the apoferritins present in the liver and spleen of human and horse are both organ- and species-specific. 7. The apoferritin isolated from the liver of a patient with idiopathic haemochromatosis was identical with normal human liver apoferritin by the criteria described above.