Role of sulphated tyrosine residue in influencing the biologic activity of human cholecystokinin-33

To evaluate the role of the sulphated tyrosine residue in position 27 in human cholecystokinin-33, parallel bioassay of the sulphated form of human cholecystokinin-33 and the unsulphated form of human cholecystokinin-33 was performed on the pancreatic protein secretion. Both peptides increased the protein output in a dose-related manner. However, the sulphated form possessed a considerably higher activity than the sulphated form. The relative potency of the unsulphated human cholecystokinin-33 compared to that of the sulphated human cholecystokinin-33 (taken as 1.0) was 0.08. From the results, it was suggested that the sulphated tyrosine may play an important role in controlling the activity of the longer molecular forms as well as that of the smaller forms of cholecystokinin.