Chicken glucagon: sequence and potency in receptor assay.

Glucagon is a 29 amino acid peptide that is generally highly conserved. Among mammalian glucagons the only one that has been shown to differ significantly is that of the guinea pig which differs from the others in 5 of the 9 COOH-terminus amino acids. The amino acid content and partial sequencing of chicken glucagon had been reported earlier. This report describes the purification and complete amino acid sequencing of chicken glucagon and demonstrates that it differs from the usual mammalian glucagon by the replacement of asparagine at position 28 with serine. Chicken glucagon is indistinguishable from porcine glucagon in the rat liver receptor assay system.