A new strategy for metabolic stabilization of motilin using the C-terminal part of ghrelin

Ghrelin consists of 28 amino acid residues with an octanoyl modification at the third serine residue. Recently we have found that the C-terminal part of ghrelin protects the ester bond of 3-octanoyled serine from plasma esterases and plays the essential role to prolong the plasma half-life and to show its biological activity in vivo. In the present study, we researched whether the C-terminal part of ghrelin has a potential to prolong the plasma half-life of motilin, by comparing the pharmacokinetics of various chimeric peptides of ghrelin and motilin. Motilin is another gastro-intestinal peptide hormone related with ghrelin structurally, binding to the same family of G protein-coupled receptors. Chimeric peptides were designed to be composed of motilin(1–12) fragment, the active core binding to the motilin receptor, GPR38, and C-terminal part of ghrelin. The modification of motilin(1–12) fragment by C-terminal part of ghrelin hardly influenced its agonist activity to GPR38 and almost all these chimeric peptides showed more than two times longer plasma half-lives than motilin in rats. From the relationship between structures of chimeric peptides and their corresponding plasma half-lives, the mid-region of ghrelin rich in basic amino acids (15RKESKK20) was considered to be the most important in prolonging the plasma half-life of motilin. The deletion of these fragments or replacement of 17th glutamic acid with a neutral amino acid resulted in short plasma half-lives. In conclusion, our data suggested that the C-terminal part of ghrelin has a potential to improve the biokinetics of motilin probably by a metabolic stabilizing effect.

► The C-terminal(8–28) part of ghrelin is important in the biological activity in vivo.
► Motilin is degraded very rapidly in plasma.
► Motilin(1–12) and ghrelin(12–28) chimeric peptide has an equipotent motilin agonist activity.
► Motilin(1–12) and ghrelin(12–28) chimeric peptide is more stable in vivo than motilin.
► The C-terminal part of ghrelin has a potential to improve the biokinetics of motilin.