Purification and characterization of peptides with corticotropin-releasing factor activity from porcine hypothalami

Ten polypeptides that stimulated the release of corticotropin from superfused rat pituitary cells and that are structurally related to porcine corticotropin-releasing factor were isolated from porcine hypothalami. The purification was carried out by gel filtration followed by reversed-phase HPLC using trifluoroacetic acid or heptafluorobutyric acid as the ion-pairing agent in water/acetonitrile solvent systems. The purified peptides were homogeneous by chromatography and by sequence analysis. One major polypeptide was characterized. Its structure is -H-Ser-Glu-Glu-Pro-Pro-Ile-Ser-Leu-Asp-Leu-Thr-Phe-His-Leu-Leu-Arg-Gl u-Val -Leu-Glu-Met-Ala-Arg-Ala-Glu-Gln-Leu-Ala-Gln-Gln-Ala-His-Ser-Asn-Arg-Lys -Leu-Met-Glu-Asn-Phe-NH2 [Patthy, M., Horvath, J., Mason-Garcia, M., Szoke, B., Schlesinger, D. H. & Schally, A. V. (1985) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 82, 8762-8766]. This 41-amino acid sequence is thought to represent porcine corticotropin-releasing factor. Based on automated gas-phase sequencing of the intact and CNBr-cleaved peptides, amino acid analysis, and carboxypeptidase Y digestion, the other nine polypeptides were found to be structurally similar to this 41-amino acid sequence. Modifications of this structure include deamidation of glutamine at position 26 or 29, oxidation of methionine at positions 21 and/or 38, a blocked N terminus, and deletion of phenylalanine amide at the C terminus. Eight of these nine modified peptides retained significant corticotropin-releasing factor activity as shown by the stimulation of corticotropin release from superfused rat and pig pituitary cells. Some of these peptides may be present in pig hypothalami, while the others could have been produced during the isolation.