Abstract: Marine tunicates (" sea squirts") display a remarkable propensity to sequester and reduce vanadium (or iron) in specialized blood cells termed vanadocytes (or ferrocytes). Characterization of the reducing blood pigments designated as tunichromes (TC's) suggested a plausible mechanism for accomplishing this. TC refers to a class of hydroxy- Dopa-containing peptides whose purification entailed several unusual chromatographic ...
