Isolation and partial characterization of pancreatic polypeptide-like material in the brain of the blowfly Calliphora vomitoria

Abstract

Using 106 flies (5 kg of heads) a pancreatic polypeptide-like material was partially purified from the blowfly C. vomitoria. The isolated material was eluted on Sephadex G-50 similarly to bovine pancreatic polypeptide and had an RF on polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis that was identical with that of the bovine hormone. The material diluted linearly and showed parallelism with bovine standards in a bovine pancreatic polypeptide immunoassay. In specificity controls the immunoreactivity was not abolished by trasylol and no cross-reactivity was discerned in assays for glucagon, proangiotensin and cAMP. Data suggest that the pancreatic polypeptide material in the brain of the blowfly has close structural similarity to the mammalian hormone.