Oxytocin and Vasopressin

There are several biologically important peptides which contain tyrosine but not tryptophan. These include small molecules with molecular weights of about 1000 or less. Molecules such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and tyrocidine A are cyclic, while others such as angiotensin II and enkephalin are linear. Schiller 19) has reviewed the literature up through 1984 on fluorescence of these and several other peptides. One major finding that has been reported recently is that the anisotropy and fluorescence intensity decays of many peptides are complex. This is especially evident in some of the tyrosine-containing peptides, and we expect that there will be considerable effort made over the next few years toward understanding the physical basis for these complex kinetics. 

Bhattacharya SK, Bhattacharya AR, Chakrabarti AMIT (1998) Anxiogenic activity of intra-ventricularly administered arginine-vasopressin in the rat. Biogenic Amines 14 367-385 Bielsky IP, Young LJ (2004) Oxytocin, vasopressin, and social recognition in mammals. Peptides 25 1565-1574... 

The oxidation state of cysteine in peptides such as glutathione may easily be recognized by the downfield shift of the signal of Cp in the cysteine residue upon oxidation from — CH2SH to -CH2-S-S- [89,790], The signal of the CH2 S-S-CH2- moiety at 41.6 ppm is also recognized in the spectra of oxytocin, vasopressin and insulin [790],... 

Sawchenko PE, Swanson LW, Vale WW (1984) Corticotropin-releasing factor co-expression within distinct subsets of oxytocin-, vasopressin-, and neurotensin-immunoreactive neurons in the hypothalamus of the male rat. J Neurosci 4 1118-1129. 

Huang CH, Santangelo SL (2008) Autism and serotonin transporter gene polymorphisms a systematic review and meta-analysis. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet 147B 903-913 Insel TR, O Brien DJ, Leckman IF (1999) Oxytocin, vasopressin, and autism is there a connection Biol. Psychiatry 45 145-157... 

Hammock EA, Young LJ (2006) Oxytocin, vasopressin and pair bonding implications for autism. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sd 361 2187-2198. 

Insel TR, O Brien DJ, Leckman JE (1999) Oxytocin, vasopressin, and autism is there a connection Biol Psychiatry 45 145-157. 

Fig. 7.15. Structural relationship between oxytocin, vasopressin, and its analogue. ...

I. L. Schwartz, H. Rasmussen, L.M. Livingston, J. Marc-Aurele, Neurohypophyseal hormone-receptor interaction in Oxytocin, vasopressin and their structural analogs. Proc. 2nd intern, pharmacol. meeting. Prague, 1963 (Pergamon 1964) 10 125-133 H. Rasmussen, I.L. Schwartz, The interaction between neurohypophyseal hormones and the amphibian urinary bladder, ibid. 41-45... 

Syntheses on polymer support are of invaluable merit in the preparation of linear structures of about decapeptide size — e.g., the bradykinins — and of precursors for cyclic structures as in the case of gramicidin S, oxytocin, vasopressin, and the antamanides. 

LH/FSH) releasing hormone, oxytocin, vasopressin and <%-melanotropin (Table 57). 

H. Tuppy and E. Wintersberger, in Oxytocin, Vasopressin and their Structural Analogues (ed. J. Rudinger), p. 143. Proc. 2nd Intern. Pharmacol. Meeting, Prague... 

Gibson, K. D., Scheraga, H. A. (1967b). Minimization of polypeptide energy. II. Preliminary structures of oxytocin, vasopressin, and an octapeptide from ribonuclease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 58,1317. 

A similar mechanism of secretion is thought to occur in the anterior and posterior pituitary gland and in the parafollicular cells of the thyroid (Trifaro, 1977). The process of exocytosis occurs in the neurohypophysis, with the release of oxytocin, vasopressin, and neurophysins I and II (Uttenthal et al., 1971 Nordmann et al., 1971) in the anterior pituitary, with the release of thyrotropin (Farquhar, 1969), adrenocor-ticotropin (Rennels and Shiino, 1968), and growth hormone (Farquhar, 1961) and in the alpha (Gomez-Acebo et al., 1968), beta (Lacy, 1961), and delta (Gomez-Acebo et al., 1968) cells of the pancreas. 

---