HUMAN β-LIPOTROPIN

Human β-lipotropin (β h -LPH) consists of 89 amino acids with glutamic acid as the NH 2 - and COOH-terminal residue and its primary structure has been proposed. In order to securely establish the primary structure of β h -LPH, the hormone has been synthesized by the new segment-coupling method in aqueous solution. The synthetic product was shown to be identical to native β h -LPH by paper electrophoresis, isoelectric focusing, high performance liquid chromatography, lipolytic activity in isolated rabbit fat cells and radio-immunoassay. Since β-lipotropin is the prohormone for β-endorphin, some recent studies on β-endorphin are discussed.