Isolation and sequencing of deer and sheep insulin-like growth factors-I and -II.

We have developed a simple method for the isolation of highly purified cervine (c) and ovine (o) insulin-like growth factors-I (IGF-I) and -II. The IGFs were isolated from acidified serum by cation exchange chromatography and then purified by gel filtration, chromatofocusing, and reverse-phase chromatography. The IGF preparations are > 95% pure. The cIGF-I preparation contains < 0.056% cIGF-II and the oIGF-I preparation contains < 0.01% oIGF-II. Both the IGF-II preparations contain < 0.01% IGF-I. The amino acid sequence of cIGF-I has two differences when compared with human (h) IGF-I. The cIGF-II sequence, which is identical to bovine IGF-II, has three differences when compared with hIGF-II.