English to Russian Medical Medical: Pharmaceuticals OVERVIEW OF THE NONCLINIC

These products are fragments of the hCG β subunit that lack the hCG β carboxyterminal antigenic determinant, but retain an hCG β core antigenic determinant, and, thus, they are designated β-core molecules. Both kidney from hCG-infused rat and urine from pregnant women contain β-core molecules in great abundance, in fact, in greater abundance than hCG, itself. Structural characterizations of the β-core purified from pregnancy urine indicate a mol. wt of about 10,000 and an absence of sialic acid, galactose, and carboxyterminal peptide region, including O-linked oligosaccharides. Human volunteers given purified hCG or hCGβ by infusion excrete β-core in their urines, which establishes the existence of catabolic pathways in humans for the production of β-core. Thus, urinary excretion of β-core may reflect an important fate for the metabolic products of hCG degradation (Nisula et al. 1989).