Insect myotropic peptides: isolation, structural characterization and biological activities

Abstract

In the early 1980's, dramatic improvements in both peptide isolation technology and the instrumentation for structural characterization resulted in an avalanche of new insect neuropeptide structures. Of the 50-60 known structures, about half exhibit effects on the contractile activity of insect visceral muscle at physiological concentrations. This report describes the strategies and tactics that were utilized to successfully isolate, purify, and structurally characterize this group of insect neuropeptides.