Calcemic fraction-A: biosynthetic peptide precursor of parathyroid hormone

Calcemic fraction-A (CF-A) is a biologically active, hypercalcemic and bone resorptive peptide, which was detected in, and isolated from, bovine parathyroid glands [Hamilton et al. (1971) Endocrinology 89, 1440-1447]. It has been further purified, and its relationship to parathyroid hormone clarified. The peptide is present in fresh glands at a concentration of about 3 mug/g (parathyroid hormone, 100 mug/g). It contains 109 amino acids (hormone, 84), each of which is present in equal or greater molar ratio than in the hormone. Its molecular weight, calculated from amino-acid composition, is 12,144; determined by dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, it is 12,500 (hormone, 9563). Per mole, it reacts with antiserum to parathyroid hormone to an extent of 7-10% that of the hormone, and is about 50% as active in its hypercalcemic and bone resorptive properties in the appropriate assays. Time course and pulse-chase experiments with parathyroid gland slices, in which the incorporation of amino acid into isolated peptide and hormone were measured, indicate that the hormone is made from a protein precursor; the patterns of incorporation of radioactivity are those that would be predicted from a precursor-product relationship. When the large peptide was incubated with parathyroid gland extracts it was partially converted to a molecule that appeared to be the hormone, as based upon its coelution with marker hormone from ion-exchange columns. Finally, tryptic digestion of the peptide increased the immunoreactivity of the sample in accord with the known greater immunoreactivity of the hormone than the peptide. On the basis of these results, it is proposed that the peptide is a biosynthetic precursor of the hormone in bovine parathyroid gland.