Separation of pineal extracts by gelfiltration. II. Identification and isolation of two indoles from sheep pineal glands.

After separation of aqueous extracts of sheep pineal bodies and sheep cerebral cortex on Sephadex G-25, a high fluorescence peak showing an excitation maximum at 305 leads to 310 nm and a fluorescence maximum at 350 leads to 355 nm was observed in pineal extracts, which could not be detected in cerebral cortex extracts. Separation of this pineal fluorescence peak on Sephadix G-10 with water elution, followed by gradient elution of water and NaOH, gave rise to several highly fluorescent peaks. From one of these it was possible to isolate a substance with Rf-values, using thinlayer chromatographic, fluorescence and mass spectra studies, identical with synthetic 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid. From another peak a substance, idential with synthetic 5-methoxyindole-3-acetic acid, could be isolated. The results are compared with those obtained in previous studies.