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.
Two years ago, however, a third vertebrate globin was discovered in the human brain and named neuroglobin. Now, scientists have chanced across a fourth globin, and they say it’s present in all body cells.
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