Ejner Bech Jensen

Biosynthetic Human Growth Hormone Identical to Authentic Material

The major component of human growth hormone (hGH) is a protein with 191 amino acid residues, and a molecular weight of approximately 22,000 D (22K-hGH). A minor component which constitutes about 5% of the more abundant form has a molecular weight of approximately 20,000 D. The minor form is derived from the major by deletion of 15 amino acid residues (32–46 of the 22K-isomer). Both molecules are single stranded, and two disulfide bridges stabilizes the structure. The N-terminus as well as the C-terminus is phenylalanine (Chawla et al., 1983).