Characterisation of a trisulphide derivative of biosynthetic human growth hormone produced in Escherichia coli

A novel protein derivative has been found during process development of biosynthetic human growth hormone; it has been characterised as human growth hormone with a Cys182-Cys189 trisulphide bridge. We have not been able to find a previous report in the literature about this kind of derivative. The characterisation was obtained partly on the full-length derivative and partly on a tryptic fragment of the derivative. The full-length derivative was characterised by reduction with 1,4-dithiothreitol followed by electrospray mass spectrometry, treatment with cysteine and measurement of hydrogen sulphide liberation upon cysteine treatment. The tryptic fragment from peptide mapping was characterised by amino acid analysis, amino acid sequencing and mass spectrometry. All data indicated an extra sulphur atom in the Cys182-Cys189 cystine bridge.