Hepatic degradation of insulin and the release of its component A and B chains.

This study confirms that insulin is degraded in the liver, that the immediate degradation products are its A and B chains, and that these are released to the circulation. The study also shows that the A and B chains when perfused for 31 minutes through the isolated rate livers were not degraded. The inference of the study is that the B chain is available for the production of synalbumin insulin antagonism.