814 THE ROLE OF NITROGEN, ETC., I., 



of Kossel and Kutscher.(40) Since legumin is one of the best 



known and typical vegetable globulins, I give the results of its 



cleavage in full. (38) 



Glycocoll 0-38% Serin 0'53% 



Alanin 2-08 Tyrosin 1*55 



Leucin 8-00 f Arginin 10'12 



Prolin 3-22 A Lysin 4'29 



Phenylalanin 3*75 ^Histidin 2-42 



i Aspartic acid 5*30 Ammonia T99 



\ Glutaminic acid 1 3 -80 Tryptophane . . . . present. 



57-43% 



Many individual proteins were separated from seeds by the 

 early workers, and much controversy took place as to the identity 

 of the products from the same group of plants. Thus we are 

 familiar with a number of edestins from different plant-seeds, 

 these being the proteins soluble in dilute salt solutions and which 

 crystallise on cooling. Similarly the phosphorus-containing 

 proteins were called vitellins. It is only since Fischer 

 supplied us with his new method for separating the hydrolytic 

 products, that we are able to say definitely whether any two 

 proteins are chemically the same or different. For example, 

 Osborne found that the globulins from the pea, bean and lentil 

 agreed in properties and composition, but differed widely from 

 the proteins of other legumes. Then the edestins from different 

 plants all have the same physical properties but the hydrolytic 

 products vary in amount. 



On the other hand, a similar yield of hydrolytic products ma) T 

 not mean physiological identity of two proteins, for the recent 

 results of Relander(41) show that the precipitin reactions are quite 

 different with the proteins from the same plant-species and 

 variety. 



In plants the group of proteins which appears to be most 

 largely represented is the globulins. Though we have long been 

 familiar with the physical properties of these, bio-chemists are 

 now actively engaged in examining their exact chemical nature 

 by the new methods just mentioned. A few of the most charac- 

 teristic of these globulins are the legumin of peas, phaseolin of 



