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An islet cell tumor, characterized by proinsulin level significantly elevated above normal human pancreas, has been found to contain insulin- and glucagon-degrading activity. Examination by chromatography on Sephadex G-75 of the degradation products formed from insulin showed A chain, and B chain rich-A chain aggregate as previously found with rat pancreatic islets. There was, however, little conversion of A chain to low molecular weight components indicating that insulinoma peptidase that has been found to degrade glucagon at about pH 6.8 degraded that A chain to a markedly lower rate. In contrast to the insulin-degrading activity, which was activated by glutathione in the presence of EDTA, the peptidase activity was not affected by the thiol compound. The activity of the peptidase was markedly inhibited by chelating agents, i.e., EDTA and o-phenanthroline, whereas chymotrypsin and trypsin inhibitors, i.e., TOS-PheCH2Cl, TOS-LysCH2Cl, soybean and pancreas trypsin inhibitor were found to have no effect.

We investigated four insulin-specific hybridoma antibodies with respect to their kinetic properties as well as the binding behaviour of some combinations of them. From equilibrium binding data all but one antibodies were shown to bear homogeneous binding sites. They revealed homogeneity of binding sites also by kinetic experiments, thus with high probability being monoclonal. At 0 degree C, two of them showed discrepancies between kinetic and steady state binding data in as much as, at steady state, the measured bound-to-free ratio of tracer insulin was 3-4 times lower than calculated from kinetic data. Thus a simple bimolecular reaction mechanism could possibly not be applicable. Mixing two monoclonal insulin antibodies, neither cooperative nor additive binding to the insulin molecule could be observed but only competitive effects. Especially, no positive cooperativity between two or more antibodies could be detected, which would be able to account for the higher affinity usually observed for polyclonal vs. monoclonal antibodies.

Radioiodinated polypeptide hormones, such as insulin, glucagon, human growth hormone, and human C-peptide are employed for radioimmunoassays for investigations of hormonal alterations in states of disturbed carbohydrate metabolism. Iodination was performed using chloramine T. Iodination products of these polypeptide hormones and, for preparation of standard material, native human C-peptide from cadaver pancreases were fractionated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis at pH 8.9. Disc electrophoresis in 24 cm-long gel rods resulted in stable tracers with high specific activity as well as homogeneous standard material being highly suitable for radioimmunoassays.