The blood protein hemoglobin and its relative, myoglobin, carry and store life-giving oxygen in many animals. Researchers long thought these complex proteins, with their unique fold, were the only two globins in vertebrates. Other globins had been discovered in invertebrates, plants, bacteria, and fungi.
WE ARE FAMILY. The existing vertebrate globins–in blood, muscle, and the brain, respectively–are now joined by a fourth, present in all cells.
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