Poly(A)+ RNA isolated from post‐mortem human hypothalami has been used to characterize the polyprotein precursors to vasopressin and oxytocin. Translation in a cell‐free system and subsequent immunoprecipitation with antibodies raised against either vasopressin or neurophysin identified a product of M
r 19000 (prepro‐vasopressin). A second less intense product of M
r 16500 was tentatively identified as prepro‐oxytocin. A cDNA library derived from the human hypothalamic poly(A)+ RNA was screened for vasopressin and oxytocin‐encoding cDNA using heterologous probes; clones encoding the two precursors were identified and found to be organized as their rat and bovine counterparts. Northern blot analysis shows that the mRNAs for the two prepro‐hormones consist of ~ 840 (AVP) and ~ 700 (OT) nucleotides.
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