Met-enkephalin-Arg6-Gly7-Leu8 exists together with Met-enkephalin-Arg6-Phe7, Met-enkephalin and Leu-enkephalin in human stomach.

Studies on the nucleotide sequence of cloned DNA complementary to mRNA for preproenkephalin A from adrenal medulla and human pheochromocytoma have revealed that this precursor contains 4 copies of methionine-enkephalin(Met-Enk) and one copy each of leu-enkephalin (Leu-Enk), methionine-enkephalin-Arg6-Gly7-Leu8(Met-Enk-Arg6-Gly7-Leu8) and methionine-enkephalin-Arg6-Phe7(Met-Enk-Arg6-Phe7). We have demonstrated the existence of Met-Enk-Arg6-Gly7-Leu8 together with Met-Enk, Leu-Enk and Met-Enk-Arg6-Phe7 in human gastric antrum, using high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) coupled with radioimmunoassays for these opioid peptides. The ratio of molar concentrations of these peptides in human gastric antrum is almost equal to the ratio of these peptides contained in preproenkephalin A. Furthermore, gel filtration studies on Sephadex G-50 showed that most of immunoreactivities of these peptides were eluted at the elution position of each synthetic peptide without any detectable immunoreactivities at high molecular weight positions. In addition, most of immunoreactivities of these four opioid peptides were detected in the muscular layer of the gastric antrum. These results indicate the presence of Met-Enk-Arg6-Gly7-Leu8 together with Met-Enk, Leu-Enk, and Met-Enk-Arg6-Phe7 in human gastric antrum and further suggest that these opioid peptides are derived from the same precursor as preproenkephalin A in the adrenal medulla and the processing of preproenkephalin A is almost completed in the human stomach.