Isolation and characterization of α-N-acetylβ-endorphin(1–26) from the rat posterior/intermediate pituitary lobe

An extract from 50 rat posterior intermediate pituitaries was fractionated by gel filtration followed by cation exchange chromatography. α-N-Acetylated derivatives of β-endorphin-like molecules were detected with a specific radioimmunoassay for α-N-acetylβ-endorphins. Six peaks of α-N-acetylβ-endorphin-like immunoreactivity were observed in the cation exchange chromatography fractions. One of these peaks was purified to homogeneity using reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). The isolated peptide was characterized by tryptic digestion followed by RP-HPLC and by amino acid analysis. The results showed that the isolated peptide was α-N-acetylβ-endorphin(1–26) with an oxidized methionine residue at position 5. Two previously unrecognized α-N-acetylβ-endorphin derivatives were also observed during the isolation procedure.