Nature 195, 506 - 507 (04 August 1962); doi:10.1038/195506b0

Effects of Mammalian Growth Hormone on Cottus scorpius Blood

A. J. MATTY

The Wellcome Laboratories of Pharmacology, The Gatty Marine Laboratory, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland.

IT is now well established that the teleost pituitary contains a growth-promoting hormone, the evidence coming from injection of fish pituitary preparations and from the effects of hypophysectomy¹. Although growth effects have been studied, the metabolic responses of either fish or mammalian somatotrophin in teleosts, such as possible diabetogenic action, have not been investigated. Both the nitrogen retention and diabetogenic effects of somatotrophin in mammals are well known and it has now been shown during work on hypophysis-pancreas relations in teleost fish that mammalian growth hormone affects blood glucose, protein and urea in Cottus scorpius.

1. Pickford, G. E. , Endocrinol., 55, 274 (1954). | ISI | ChemPort |
2. Wilhelmi, A. E. , The Hypophyseal Growth Hormone, Nature and Actions, edit. by Smith, R. W., Gaebler, O. H., and Long, N. H. (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1955).
3. Falkmer, S. , and Matty, A. J. (in preparation).
4. Pickford, G. E. , and Atz, J. , The Physiology of the Pituitary Gland of Fish (Zool. Soc. New York, New York, 1957).