An investigation to determine the number of proteins comprising the keratin of the chick down feather was carried out using anion‐exchange chromatography of the carboxymethylated derivatives of reduced feather proteins, followed by examination of discrete protein fractions by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis at pH 9.5 and pH 2.7 and by amino acid analysis. Twenty two different proteinswere identified by these techniques and it is likely that at least nineteen are closely related to one another in terms of primary structure. The heterogenteity observed was not the result of incomplete alkylation or of non‐spceific reactions during the carboxymethylation procedure nor did it arise during the procedures used to separate or analyse the carboxymethylated keratin.
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Walker et al. (1976) studied this question.