Horsetail (Equisetwn telmateia) Ferredoxins I and II

Abstract

Two ferredoxins were isolated from horsetail (Equisetum telmateia) and their amino acid sequences were determined by use of a sequence analyzer in combination with carboxypeptidase digestion and manual Edman degradation of tryptic peptides of carboxymethyl-ferredoxins. Ferredoxins I and II each had only four cysteine residues in a total of 95 and 93 residues, respectively. The amino-terminal residues of both ferredoxins were heterogeneous, but alanine was concluded to be their genuine terminal residue. The comparison of these isozymelike molecules showed 29 differences in amino acid residues with three inverted replacements. One gap was inserted in ferredoxin II at position 32 to align the ferredoxins with greatest homology. Despite the many differences in amino acid residues there was no difference in net charges of the two ferredoxins.