20K is bound with high affinity by one rat and one of two rabbit growth hormone receptors

A naturally occurring variant of human (h)GH, designated 20K, is equipotent with hGH(22K) in stimulating growth in hypophysectomized rats. However, despite high growth-promoting activity in vivo, 20K is a poor inhibitor of 125I-hGH(22K) binding to GH receptors in radioreceptor assays. In order to resolve the differences between bioassay and radioreceptor assay data, we have examined the binding of 20K to rat and rabbit liver GH receptors. Our data indicate that the GH receptor in rat liver binds 20K with an affinity only slightly lower than that for hGH(22K), in accordance with bioassay data. In the rabbit, however, 20K is bound with high affinity by only a small subset of the GH receptors which bind hGH(22K) with high affinity. The GH receptors which bind 20K appear to belong to the same of subset of receptors which bind rat and rabbit GH with high affinity.