Nature 266, 55 - 57 (03 March 1977); doi:10.1038/266055a0

Biochemical characterisation of a serum thymic factor

JEAN-FRANCOIS BACH^*, MIREILLE DARDENNE^*, JEAN-MARIE PLEAU^* & JEAN ROSA^†

^*INSERM U 25, Hôpital Necker, 161 rue de Sèvres, 75015 Paris, France
^†INSERM U 91, Hôpital Henri Mondor, 51 avenue du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny, 94000 Creteil, France

THE search for biologically active peptides with hormonal properties has been intense. The thymus has been looked upon as a source of such materials by a number of investigators but so far no generally accepted compounds have emerged¹⁻⁵. We present here a sequence for a nonapeptide which is found in the serum of several animal species, where its presence is thymus-dependent⁶⁻⁸.

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