Unusual Diversity of Myoglobin Genes in the Lungfish.

Myoglobin is a respiratory protein that serves as a model system in a variety of biological fields. Its main function is to deliver and store O in the heart and skeletal muscles, but myoglobin is also instrumental in homeostasis of nitric oxide (NO) and detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Almost every vertebrate harbors a single myoglobin gene; only some cyprinid fishes have two recently duplicated myoglobin genes.