Determination of various molecular forms of cholecystokinin from canine mucosa by radioimmunoassay and bioassay.

Bioassays using amylase release from isolated pancreatic acini measure only cholecystokinin (CCK) forms with an intact carboxyl terminus ending with phenylalanine amide, but it cannot be excluded that peptides not structurally related to CCK are also responsible for CCK-like bioactivity. CCK exists in several molecular forms in intestinal mucosa which are released into the circulating blood. We studied the molecular forms of CCK in canine intestinal extracts after separation by high performance liquid chromatography by bioassay and compared them with those detected by radioimmunoassay. For the radioimmunoassay, an antibody was used which needs the carboxyl terminal phenylalanine amide for recognition. Three immunoreactive peaks were reproducibly seen in HPLC eluates which eluted in the regions of synthetic CCK-8, purified porcine CCK-33-39 (which co-elute using this gradient) and purified canine CCK-58. All these peaks were bioactive for amylase release from isolated pancreatic acini. No further bioactive peaks were detected in the HPLC eluates. When an antibody was used which recognizes the midregion of CCK-58, an additional peak was detected which eluted between CCK-33-39 and CCK-58. This form presumably represents an amino terminal fragment of CCK lacking the carboxyl terminus. It can be concluded that bioassays of CCK measure only CCK bioactivity in intestinal mucosal extracts, whereas radioimmunoassays may detect biologically inactive forms depending on the antibody recognition site.