Study on the constructions and activities of three novel hGHRH analogs with N-terminal prolyl modulation+

Growth hormone releasing hormone is one of the hormones secreted by the hypothalamus. Because of its potential applications in agriculture and medicine, its short half-life and its expensive chemical synthesis, an analog with high GHRH activity and prolonged half-life has been looked for. The fusion partner gene with 127 amino acid residues of the C-terminus from l-asparaginase was recombined respectively with asp-pro-pro-hGHRH(1-44), asp-pro-hGHRH(1-44) or asp-1pro-GHRH(2-44) genes synthesized by PCR method to form three kinds of fusion proteins with unique acid labile linker Asp-Pro. The Pro-Pro-hGHRH(1-44), Pro-hGHRH(1-44), and 1Pro-GHRH(2-44) peptides were purified to homogeneity by means of cell disruption, washing of inclusion body, ethanol fraction precipitation, acid hydrolysis, SP-Sephadex C-25 and Sephadex G-10 column chromatography. The peptide molecular mass of 5235, 5139 or 4975 Da was determined by ESI mass spectroscopy and purity was determined by SDS-PAGE. In the study of in vitro activity, the antiserum kit against human GH and peptide doses of 0.1, 1.0 and 10 μg/ml were used. These peptides obviously increased GH releases both from human pituitary and from rat pituitary. The activity comparisons showed that there was significant difference between Pro-Pro-hGHRH(1-44)-Gly-Gly-Cys and Pro-Pro-hGHRH(1-44) at 1.0 μg/ml, or between 1Pro-hGHRH(2-44) and Pro-Pro-hGHRH(1-44) or Pro-hGHRH(1-44) at 10 μg/ml. The structure-activity relationships showed that at the original C-terminus, for rat pituitary the activity of the GHRH analog with 1Tyr→Pro was more than that of Pro-Pro-hGHRH(1-44) or Pro-hGHRH(1-44). The results showed that the analogs had good GH-releasing activity and species specificity.