Cetacean relaxin. Isolation and sequence of relaxins from Balaenoptera acutorostrata and Balaenoptera edeni

The tendency toward extremely high variability among relaxins derived from purportedly closely related species has come to an abrupt end with the discovery of quasi-porcine relaxin in the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and the Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera edeni). An aqueous abstract of the corpora lutea of the two baleen whales contained significant amounts of relaxin-like activity as determined by a mouse bioassay and by cross-reactivity with anti-pig relaxin antibodies. The activity could be isolated and purified to homogeneity. Sequence analysis revealed that both whale relaxins differed from each other by about 3 residues, whereas the relaxin of B. edeni differed at only one position from that of pig relaxin. The similarity appears to include even the chain length heterogeneity observed at the C-terminal end of the B chain in porcine relaxin which is produced by a peculiar mode of connecting peptide removal from the pro-hormone. This finding may well represent one of the better documented challenges to the current paradigm of molecular evolution.