THE DEVELOPMENT of a convenient and dependable procedure for bioassay of excreted pituitary hormones has commanded the continued interests of many endocrinologists. The numerous published techniques, and their variations, attest to this fact. Their number indicates, also, that although dependable procedures were evolved some time ago, all of them are laborious enough to stimulate further inquiry. The procedure described here achieves both economy of effort and completeness and accuracy of result, and would, therefore, seem t o fulfill a long sought purpose. Existing methods for concentrating urinary hypophyseal hormones all depend upon precipitation with various reagents (alcohol, tannic acid, tungstic acid, acetone, ammonium sulphate, etc.) and subsequent processing of the precipitate. To insure completeness of recovery and to avoid denaturation of hormone various specialized manipulations (pH adjustment, dialysis, working at cold-room temperatures, etc.) have been employed. The difficulties incident to proper employment of these measures with large volumes of urine apparently have discouraged a good deal of investigation of the urinary pituitary hormones.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Aubrey Gorbman (1945) studied this question.