title: Melanin concentrating hormone. V. Isolation and characterization of alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone from frog pituitary glands.
abstract: The structure of alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) has been determined in the pars intermedia of the frog Rana ridibunda. Pulse-chase labeling of frog neurointermediate lobes with selective amino acids revealed that the composition of frog alpha-MSH is similar to that of alpha-MSH from all mammalian species yet studied. Tryptic mapping of nexly synthetized alpha-MSH generated two fragments with the following amino acid composition: (T1) Trp, Pro, Lys, Gly, Val and (T2) Tyr, Arg, Phe, His, Ser, Glu. Concurrently, alpha-MSH was purified from 100 neurointermediate lobes to apparent homogeneity by reverse-phase HPLC. The sequence of the peptide determined by automated Edman degradation was Ser-Tyr-Ser-Met-Glu-His-Phe-Arg-Trp-Gly-Lys-Pro-Val. The structure of frog alpha-MSH is thus identical to mammalian des-N alpha-acetyl alpha-MSH and differs from the sequence of toad (Xenopus laevis) alpha-MSH only by the first residue (Ser instead of Ala). These results confirm that the sequence of alpha-MSH has been highly preserved during evolution.
authors.affiliation: URA CNRS 650, Unité Affiliée à l'INSERM, Université de Rouen, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France.
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Tonon
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Desrues
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lazure
authors.forename: B G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Jenks
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chrétien
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Vaudry
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000032:analysis; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010904:Pituitary Gland, Posterior / Q000032:analysis*; D011895:Rana ridibunda / Q000378:metabolism*; D011898:Ranidae / Q000378:metabolism*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014982:Xenopus laevis; D000521:alpha-MSH / Q000302:isolation & purification*
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D000521:alpha-MSH