STUDIES IN THE PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY OF THE ANTERIOR PITUITARY HORMONES SEPARATION OF FIVE ANTERIOR PITUITARY HORMONES INTO DIFFERENT FRACTIONS BY ISOELECTRIC AND AMMONIUM SULFATE PRECIPITATION¹

Abstract

THE ISOLATION as chemical individuals of the various proteins of any tissue systern would appear to be not only possible but desirable to the end of understanding in how far the physiological functions ascribed to the tissue are attributes of different molecules. The anterior pituitary gland has been chosen for the present study since it has been shown to subserve a wide variety of physiological functions. There has been considerable discussion as to whether or not these functions are performed by the same or by different molecules. Many of the anterior pituitary hormones are proteins and the problem of their separation is therefore one of protein chemistry. It seemed desirable to determine how far the methods that have been developed for the separation of the serum and other proteins (1, 2) could be employed in the fractionation of the anterior pituitary gland