Chemical synthesis and structure-activity relations for ANF analogues

Chemical synthesis of a new peptide hormone allows absolute confirmation of the peptide's structure, allows physiologic and pharmacologic evaluation of the hormone's properties in vivo and in vitro, and permits development of a radioimmunoassay for the hormone. The study of the effects of structure modification on the bioactivity of atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) is at the earliest stages of defining minimum molecular size, aspects of the bioactive conformation, and the contribution of each side chain to receptor binding. A particular problem in the evaluation of structure-function studies with ANF is the diversity of bioassays used by various laboratories.