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. 1970 Mar;116(5):899–909. doi: 10.1042/bj1160899

The isolation of three neurophysins from porcine posterior pituitary lobes

L O Uttenthal 1, D B Hope 1
PMCID: PMC1185513  PMID: 5441378

Abstract

1. Three neurophysins, proteins that bind the polypeptide hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, have been isolated from acetone-dried porcine posterior pituitary lobes. The proteins have been named porcine neurophysins-I, -II and -III in order of their electrophoretic mobilities at pH8.1. 2. Electrophoretic comparison of the purified proteins, which are homogeneous on starch-gel electrophoresis, with the soluble proteins of fresh porcine posterior pituitary lobes extracted in 0.1m-HCl and in buffer pH8.1 suggests that the isolated proteins are native to the fresh tissue. 3. Neurophysins-I and -II are present in similar amounts in the tissue, whereas neurophysin-III is present only in small quantities. Acetone-dried tissue also contains traces of other hormone-binding neurophysin components. 4. All the neurophysins can bind both oxytocin and [8-lysine]-vasopressin. 5. The apparent molecular weights of the neurophysins increase with increasing protein concentration as measured by equilibrium sedimentation in the ultracentrifuge. 6. Neurophysins-I and -III are of similar molecular dimensions, contain one residue of methionine per molecule and lack histidine. The minimum molecular weight of neurophysin-I obtained by amino acid analysis is 9360. Neurophysin-II is of larger molecular dimensions than neurophysins-I and -III and can be separated from these by gel filtration on Sephadex G-75. It contains no histidine or methionine, and its minimum molecular weight has been estimated as 14020 by amino acid analysis. 7. Each of the three neurophysins possesses N-terminal alanine. 8. The possible biological significance of the existence of several neurophysins within one species is discussed.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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