标题: A Puppy with Green Fur That Is Fading [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 10-22-2020 10:46 标题: A Puppy with Green Fur That Is Fading Reuters staff, Unfur-Gettable: Puppy with Green Fur Born in Sardinia. Reuters, Oct 22, 2020. https://news.yahoo.com/unfur-get ... -fur-091141367.html
("Italian farmer Cristian Mallocci * * * immediately named [the puppy] Pistachio * * * part of a five-dog litter born on Oct. 9, all with white fur, the same colour as their mixed breed mum. Except him. * * * It is extremely rare for a dog to be born with green-coloured fur. It is thought that it happens when pale coloured puppies have contact in their mother's womb with a green pigment called biliverdin. It is the same pigment that causes the green colour in bruises. However, Pistachio's peculiar colour won't last forever. The bright green his fur had on the day of his birth has faded day by day")
Note:
(a) Sardinia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinia
("is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily * * * immediately south of the French island of Corsica"/ section 1 Etymology: unsettled; table: Population (2020) 1,628,384)
(b) Regarding biliverdin.
(i) Hemoglobin in the red blood cell carries oxygen and is responsible for its (cell's) red color (while doing so). Without oxygen, hemoglobin appears dark red. Physically, this is because oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin absorb kifgr at different wavelengths.
Hemoglobin A makes up 97% of human adult hemoglobin (Hemoglobin A2, about 1-3%). Chemically, Hemoglobin A is composed of four globins (two alpha and two beta), each globin with a heme attached (capable of transporting one molecule of oxygen).
(ii) When a red blood cell becomes senescent, a macrophage in spleen or liver will remove it; protein (globin) and heme of hemoblogin will be degraded separately.
An oxygenase oxidizes.
(iii) biliverdin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biliverdin
(Biliverdin is seen briefly in some bruises as a green color. In bruises, its breakdown into bilirubin leads to a yellowish color [stool looks yellow or brown due to bilirubin]. * * * Jaundice is caused by the accumulation of biliverdin or bilirubin (or both) in the circulatory system and tissues. * * * Biliverdin is an important pigment component in avian egg shells, especially blue and green shells. * * * Research has shown that the biliverdin of egg shells is produced from the shell gland, rather than from the breakdown of erythrocytes in the blood stream. * * * biliverdin is present in the blue-green blood of many marine fish, the blood of tobacco hornworm, the wings of moth and butterfly, the serum and eggs of frogs, and the placenta of dogs.[8] With dogs this can lead, in extremely rare cases, to the birth of puppies with green fur; however, the green color fades out soon after birth.[9])
(A) In a bruise, red blood cells spill out of capillaries or small bleed vessels. Macrophages arrive to chew them up.
(B) The English word biliverdin comes from German noun neuter Biliverdin (Latin [noun feminine] bīlis bile + Italian [adjective masculine or noun masculine] verde green + -in) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Biliverdin
(C) By the same token, bilirubin in English is borrowed from German noun neuter Bilirubin (Latin adjectives masculine ruber or rubeus red).
(D) Reference 8, which is Fang LS and Bada JL, The Blue-Green Blood Plasma of Marine Fish. Comp Biochem Physiol B (1990) 97: 37-45, in the quotation is locked behind paywall. However, Lemberg B, Varcroft J and Keilin D, Uteroverdin. Nature (1931) 128: 967–968 https://www.nature.com/articles/128967c0
("the blue-green pigment of the shells of many birds' eggs * * * We have now found a second example of this class of substances in the green pigment of the dog's placenta * * * This pigment was examined in 1871 by Etti, and considered to be biliverdin ; it is formed by the transformation of the blood-pigment in the extravasates of the dog's placenta")
A biologist by training, I know this word as a noun only. But both Oxford and www.merriam-webster.com have it as a verb only (either transitive or intransitive).
(E) Footnote 9 presents a Time article (or a blog) dated June 13, 2014. But googling with (dog placenta biliverdin) returns many similar pictures.
(F) Incidentally, the brown eggs of fowls get thir color from protoporphyrin IX. See
Samiullah S, Roberts JR and Chousalkar K, Eggshell Color in Brown-Egg Laying Hens - a Review. Poult Sci (2015) 94: 2566-75 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26240390/
("The major pigment in eggshells of brown-egg laying hens is protoporphyrin IX, but traces of biliverdin and its zinc chelates are also present. The pigment appears to be synthesized in the shell gland. The protoporphyrin IX synthetic pathway is well defined, but precisely where and how it is synthesized in the shell gland of the brown-egg laying hen is still ambiguous")
Protoporphyrin IX together with an iron (ferrous or 2+) form a heme. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heme
(second sketch from the top, whose caption states, "Space-filling model of the Fe-protoporphyrin IX subunit of heme B. Axial ligands omitted. Color scheme: grey=iron * * *