IRON PIGMENT OF RED HAIR AND FEATHERS

[摘要] From red chicken feathers, considerable quantities of an Fe pigment were isolated which is closely related to, or possibly identical with, trichosiderin, the Fe pigment of human red hair. Under mild conditions of extraction the pigment may be obtained in the form of non-dialyzable prtopigments which lack the characteristic absorption band of trichosiderin in the visible; short boiling in acids converts them to the siderin-type pigments. Dialyzable fractions with all the original features of the siderins, a higher Fe content, and more pronounced absorption bands were prepared. These chromophores contain considerable amounts of tyrosine. A new finding is the absorption band at 280 m[mu]. Trichosiderin may be a major pigment of human red hair. Its limited ex-tractability is not due to the small quantities present, but to its destruction during extraction with boiling acids.