POLAR BEAR MILK: III. GEL-ELECTROPHORETIC STUDIES OF PROTEIN FRACTIONS ISOLATED FROM POLAR BEAR MILK AND HUMAN MILK
Polar bear milk was stored in the frozen state for 2 months. It was then thawed and subjected to low-speed centrifugation. The material (D) which deposited at the bottom of the centrifuge tube and also the casein and whey proteins isolated from the supernate were analyzed by polyacrylamide-gel (without urea) electrophoresis. The precipitate (D) and the casein gave closely similar electrophoretic patterns. However, the precipitate (D) contained less than 20% of the carbohydrate (hexose, hexosamine, sialic acid) content of the casein. Polar bear casein and bovine casein gave similar electropherograms when subjected to polyacrylamide-gel (7 M urea) electrophoretic analysis. Human casein gave eight distinct bands, four of which had higher mobilities than did bovine αs-casein. Starch-gel (2-mercaptoethanol added) electrophoretic analysis indicated that polar bear casein and human casein produced 8 and 13 electrophoretic components respectively.