Anterior pituitary growth hormone preparations and process for the manufacture thereof

摘要

The invention relates to anterior pituitary growth hormone preparations prepared from anterior pituitary growth hormones obtained from animal pituitaries by the effect of a reducing agent which is known to be capable of converting the disulphide linkages -S-S- present in the molecule into -SH groups or -SH and -S2O3H or -SH and -SCN groups. Suitable reducing agents are thioglycollic acid, alkali metal sulphites, alkali metal cyanides, alkali metal borohydrides, alkali metal aluminium hydrides and alkali metal trialkoxy borohydrides. The sulphydryl groups present in the reduced anterior pituitary growth hormone may be protected in known manner, e.g. by means of iodo-acetic acid or N-ethyl maleinimide. In one example, cattle anterior pituitary growth hormone is dissolved in aqueous phosphate buffer of pH 6.5 and partially reduced with aqueous sodium sulphite solution, the pH is adjusted to pH 2.0, iodo-acetic acid added and the reaction continued at pH 8.7 to completion. The solution is dialysed against distilled water and lyophilized.