Number and types of peptide chains in thyroglobulin: tryptic peptides of noniodinated hog thyroglobulin

In order to identify the number and types of peptide chains in thyroglobulin, noniodinated 19-S thyroglobulin obtained from goitrogen-treated hogs was exhaustively digested with trypsin (EC 3.4.4.4) after reduction and S-carboxymethylation. The digestion mixture was preliminarily separated into 30 fractions on Sephadex G-100 or G-15 and SE-Sephadex columns. The number of various tryptic peptides contained in each fraction was determined on peptide maps, where spots were detected with ninhydrin for total peptides and with each specific reagent for arginine, histidine or tyrosine-containing peptides. The number of total peptides observed in most of the fractions was estimated to be half the number of lysine plus arginine residues found in each fraction per mole of thyroglobulin, and the number of specific peptides was also close to half the number of each specific amino acid. These findings imply that thyroglobulin has 2-fold symmetry in the structure at the level of tryptic fragments and thus probably at the level of intact peptide chains.