Oxytocin analogues with combined high smooth muscle and negligible antidiuretic activities. Investigation of position 7 in neurohypophyseal hormones.

The proline residue in position 7 of oxytocin occupies one of the four corner positions in the two beta turns proposed for the preferred conformation of the pituitary hormone. It has been suggested that synthetic modifications of the residues in these corner positions will yield analogues in which one or more of the biological activities of the parent hormone is highly accentuated in terms of potency relative to other activities. In a continued effort to test this hypothesis the following analogues of oxytocin were prepared: [7-glycine]oxytocin, [1-beta-mercaptopropionic acid,7-glycine]oxytocin, [7-alanine]oxytocin, and [1-beta-mercaptopropionic acid,7-alanine]oxytocin. These peptides were found to possess the following specific activities, respectively: rat uterotonic, 65 +/- 2, 355 +/- 3, 22 +/- 1, 123 +/- 4; avian vasodepressor, 5.3 +/- 0.8, 17 +/- 0.4, 4.8 +/- 0.1, 9.8 +/- 0.5; rat antidiuretic, less than0.01, 0.062, 0.081 +/- 0.01, 0.17 +/- 0.01; rat pressor, 0.3, 0.5, 0.4, 0.5 unit/mg. Thus the analogues retain high uterotonic activity but exhibit strongly diminished renal and vascular activities relative to oxytocin. Especially noteworthy is [1-beta-mercaptopropionic acid,7-glycine]oxytocin with its high uterotonic activity but very low antidiuretic and pressor activities. The activity profile of this analogue combined with the fact that it is only slowly enzymatically degraded warrants further investigations of this peptide for clinical applications.