Characterization and purification of iodinated bovine thyrotropin by high performance liquid chromatography

Reversed-phase (RP) HPLC, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and gel permeation chromatography have been used to study the incorporation of 125I into bovine (b) TSH by the lactoperoxidase-catalyzed radioiodination procedure. Two preparations of [125I]bTSH were studied, being freshly iodinated bTSH and tracer purified from this preparation by the method of receptor adsorption. It is demonstrated with these methods that both the alpha- and beta-subunits of bTSH are labeled with 125I, and that the tracer purified by receptor adsorption retains this incorporation pattern. However, the implied theoretical specific activity of (at least) 2 I atoms per TSH molecule (or approximately 140 muCi/micrograms) suggested by this result was not achieved, with observed tracer specific activity being 30-60 muCi/micrograms, indicating that hormone molecules with varying extents of labeling must exist. Evidence to support this was provided by comparison of the MIT/DIT ratios for the 2 tracer preparations. Receptor adsorption decreased the MIT/DIT ratio from 75:25 in the freshly iodinated bTSH to 93:7, indicating the selection of particular iodinated species. Tryptic mapping by RP-HPLC was used to study both tracer preparations, and it is shown that at least 14 iodine-containing tryptic peptides may be resolved for each preparation, which is greater than the theoretical maximum of 13 peptides if every tyrosine was labeled and tryptic cleavage occurred at all possible lysine and arginine residues. Tracer heterogeneity was also studied by purification using RP-HPLC. Selection of peak fractions demonstrated that intact [125I]bTSH may be recovered from RP-HPLC which in TSH radioreceptor assay exhibit increased assay sensitivity, increased saturable binding, and decreased nonsaturable binding.