Studies of pituitary lactogenic hormone. Physicochemical characterization on procine prolactin.

Porcine pituitary lactogenic hormone has been examined by exclusion chromatography, analytical ultracentrifugation, free-boundary electrophoresis, solubility behavior, circular dichroism, and fluorescence spectra. The results have been compared with previous studies of ovine pituitary lactogenic hormone. These two hormones were found to resemble one another very closely by all criteria studied. While the homology between these lactogenic hormones and growth hormones is strongly reflected in the sharing of certain physicochemical properties, a number of distinct structural differences between these two closely related evolutionary lines are now becoming apparent.