Presence of arginine‐vasopressin in bovine pituitary intraglandular colloid of intermediate lobe origin

Abstract

In order to determine whether pituitary intraglandular colloid might contain enough hormonal material to be considered a transport medium for intermediate lobe peptides, arginine-vasopressin was assayed in three pools of colloid collected from nearly 100 steers. Colloid samples taken from the pituitary glands of freshly slaughtered cattle were pooled, freed of extraneous tissue, and lyophilized. Three such pools were further extracted on octadecylsilyl-silica and assayed. The radioimmunoassay showed that arginine-vasopressin was indeed present in the bovine intraglandular colloid at levels ranging from 0.18 to 6.95 ng/mg dry weight. These results indicate that the intraglandular colloid contains a sufficient amount of arginine-vasopressin to be considered as a transport medium for this and other intermediate lobe peptides.