Purification of a pituitary polypeptide that stimulates the replication of adipocyte precursors in culture.

A bovine anterior pituitary polypeptide that stimulates the replication of rat and human adipocyte precursors has been purified. Its Mr is 44 000-53 000 and its isoelectric point is 9.8-10.3. While pituitary basic fibroblast growth factor is equally mitogenic on adipocyte precursors and skin fibroblasts, the polypeptide described here is selectively more active on the precursors. We postulate that this adipocyte growth factor plays a physiological role by modulating the number of adipocyte precursors.