Identification of new atrial natriuretic peptides in frog heart

It has been observed that mammalian atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP)-like immunoreactivity is found in frog heart, but to date the natriuretic factors have not yet been identified. Isolation from bull-frog heart extract was performed mainly by immunoaffinity chromatography on a column linked with anti-hANP IgG. From the low molecular weight fraction, 24- and 21-amino acid peptides were purified to homogeneity. Both peptides were found to elicit diuretic-natriuretic as well as vasorelaxant activity, and were named "frog ANP-24" and "frog ANP-21", respectively. Complete amino acid sequences of the peptides were established by microsequencing and confirmed by syntheses. Frog ANP-21 was identified as an N-terminally three amino acid deleted form of frog ANP-24. Remarkable sequence homology was observed between frog ANP and mammalian ANP, especially in the regions flanked by two half-cystine residues.