Vasoactive intestinal peptide and anterior pituitary function

Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) is a highly basic 28 amino-acid peptide which was first isolated from porcine small intestine (Said & Mutt, 1970). It is related to several other peptides including PHI (peptide with N-terminal histidine and C-terminal isoleucine amide), secretin, glucagon, and has some sequences similar to those of growth hormone releasing hormone (Fig. 1). The amino-acid sequence of human VIP is identical with that of the porcine form (Itoh et al., 1983). It has been shown that human VIP is cosynthesized with PHM (peptide with N-terminal histidine and C-terminal methionine amide, the human analogue of PHI) from the same large precursor protein (Itoh et al., 1983).