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Seminars in Medicine of the Beth Israel Hospital, BostonArchive

Proinsulin and the Biosynthesis of Insulin

List of authors.
  • Donald F. Steiner, M.D.

THE protein hormone insulin seems to be of perennial interest to biochemists. It was among the first to be crystallized and was the first protein whose primary structure was elucidated by Sanger and his collaborators in the 1950's (Fig. 1). It is also the first protein that was totally synthesized chemically, this feat having been accomplished in 1964 in several laboratories throughout the world. Much interest has centered around the mechanism of biosynthesis of its two-chain structure. Two major possibilities exist: the two polypeptide chains might be made on separate ribosomal units and then combined through the formation of disulfide . . .

Funding and Disclosures

* From the Department of Biochemistry, University of Chicago School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.

Supported by a grant (AM-04931) from the United States Public Health Service (Dr. Steiner is the recipient of a research career-development award from the United States Public Health Service).

I am indebted to the many students and colleagues who have collaborated with me in this work. I particularly wish to acknowledge the efforts of Jeffrey Clark, Bradley Aten,* Lilian Spigelman, James Mackenzie, Charles Birdwell, Philip Oyer, Claudia Bayliss and Sooja Cho, and also of Drs. Arthur Rubenstein, C. Nolan, E. Margoliash and S. Pilkis. *Deceased, January 17, 1969.

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