[Syntheses of human little gastrin-I and its leucine-15, norleucine-15 and methoxinine-15 analogs].

Human little gastrin-I is known to exhibit a high tendency to air-oxidation of its methionine-15 residue to the corresponding S-oxide derivative, with concomitant loss of biological activity. Since its leucine-15 analog, even if fully biologically active, differs significantly from the parent hormone in the immunological properties, the norleucine-15 and methoxinine-15 analogues were synthetized. For the required comparative analyses new syntheses of human little gastrin-I and of its leucine-15 analog were additionally elaborated. Upon an optimized condensation of the fragments, followed by the deprotection step, partition chromatography as well as preparative high-performance liquid chromatography led to the desired gastrins in satisfactory yields and high degree of purity as judged by the expected and known side products.