Structure of a guinea pig common precursor to a MSEL-type neurophysin and copeptin.

From guinea pig posterior pituitaries, a MSEL-type neurophysin (neurophysin containing methionine-2, serine-3, glutamic acid-6 and leucine-7), a glycopeptide referred to as copeptin and their common precursor have been purified to homogeneity and sequenced. The performed acid-oxidized precursor, subjected to trypsin hydrolysis, has given 9 peptides, 6 of which (T1-T6) identical to those given by oxidized MSEL-neurophysin except that T6 has an additional C-terminal arginine residue when compared to its homologue. The other 3 tryptic peptides (T7-T9) are identical to those given by copeptin. The 132-residue precursor therefore comprises a MSEL-type neurophysin (93 residues) and copeptin (38 residues) linked by an arginine residue. The molar proportion of this bound form compared with the free polypeptides is approximately 20%. It is believed that this precursor is a part of the vasopressin-MSEL-neurophysin-copeptin precursor incompletely processed during the transport from hypothalamus to neurohypophysis.