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W. D. PECKHAM, T. YAMAJI, D. J. DIERSCHKE, E. KNOBIL, Gonadal Function and the Biological and Physicochemical Properties of FollicleZ— Stimulating Hormone, Endocrinology, Volume 92, Issue 6, 1 June 1973, Pages 1660–1666, https://doi.org/10.1210/endo-92-6-1660
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Certain monkey pituitary preparations with low FSH biopotencies were found to contain unexpectedly large quantities of immunoreactive FSH when assayed by a specific radioimmunoassay for rhesus FSH. Exclusion chromatography of these and other preparations, and assay of the resulting fractions, suggested that rhesus pituitary FSH is heterogeneous, and that the ratio of immunological to biological activity is least for the largest FSH molecules. Further, the ratios of immunological to biological FSH activity of unfractionated pituitary extracts and sera from intact female monkeys were at least twice those of pituitary extracts and sera from ovariectomized animals. Exclusion chromatography revealed a preponderance of FSH components of larger molecular size in the extracts and sera from the ovariectomized animals, suggesting that differences in FSH structure may account for the observed discrepancies between activity ratios. That these differences were seen in sera as well as in pituitary extracts attests to the physiological importance of this phenomenon. The lesser biological activity of the FSH from intact females can be explained, at least in part, by the observation that pituitary FSH from intact females disappeared more rapidly from the circulation of Steelman—Pohley assay rats than FSH from pituitaries of ovariectomized animals, a finding consistent with the view that these differences in biological activity may involve differences in the extent of sialylation of the FSH molecules. (Endocrinology92: 1660, 1973)