Studies on human urinary and pituitary gonadotrophins

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Gonadotrophins were prepared from human urine and pituitary glands and purified by chromatography on carboxymethyl- and diethyl-aminoethyl-cellulose and calcium phosphate. Two fractions, one with mainly follicle-stimulating-hormone activity and one with mainly interstitial-cell-stimulating-hormone activity, were obtained. The first follicle-stimulating-hormone fraction was 3002 times as potent as the International Standard Preparation HMG24 by the ovarian-augmentation assay. It showed two components in the ultracentrifuge, the major one (64%) having sedimentation coefficient 1.64. The second follicle-stimulating-hormone fraction was 1014 times as potent as the standard and was homogeneous in the ultracentrifuge with sedimentation coefficient 3.07. The best urinary fractions had about one-tenth of the activity of the best pituitary-gland fractions. Antibodies were raised to some of the fractions from urine and pituitary glands and when tested in vivo they were found to inhibit both urinary human menopausal gonadotrophin and pituitary-gland gonadotrophin but were ineffective against human chorionic gonadotrophin. They failed to produce precipitin lines by the agar-gel-diffusion technique but could be used in the red-cell-haemagglutination technique.