Jinotropin GH: Cadaver Salvage or Manufactured?

[alltraps]

good post!

 

[gorilla_boy]

It's good that you fellows agreed to have a rational discussion. This is an interesting post. We should be like family here.

Gorilla....you seem like a smart guy, and it sounds like you have a reason to distrust this brand. So what is it? <snip>

Thanks. I really don't have any specific reason to distrust Jinotropin. I was just doing some research on GH as I'll maybe use it in the new year and the thought of it's origin popped into my head. I was surprised that no one else had ever asked about it before and thought I'd get a little discussion going on it both for my own sake and for the rest of us.

The distrust you detect comes from my years around these boards and knowing just how much bullshit goes on. I think it's important that we question the answers that we recieve and look for fact and reasoning rather than blindly accepting things as truth.

Dr. M should really be commended for his knowledge and for sharing it. We, on all of these boards, need more of that than the constant and obvious parrotting by the well-meaning, the ignorant and those with ulterior motive.

 

[riskarb]

Agreed... The $$ saved over Serostim are easily quantified, the risks for those $$ savings are not when using hGH from an unknown source.

The Chinese govt. condoned knock-offs of everything from Rolex to Baby formula, why not rHGH? A bit tongue in cheek, but you get my point.

I'll doubt the Chinese are sourcing GH from cadavers, but producing rHGH is a complicated process... I wouldn't want to take the chance with my life -- prion diseases, whoa boy...

 

[Dr. M]

-You called me an idiot in an otherwise rational discussion. You had it coming.
-I'm not promoting anything, I was looking for reasonable discussion from someone who actually knew what he was talking about.
-Thank you for a great explanation, you obviously do know what you're talking about.

Fair enough. I'm just gonna go and bury this hatchet... be back in a few mins.

-M

 

[Dr. M]

Hey, Dr. M, what language is that you are speaking LOL. I'm happy to meet someone who understands this stuff. You know what's interesting.......seems almost every pharmaceutical company uses e-coli for the base except Serono. Serono uses mammalian proteins (rat) and "injects" human DNA into the molecule. Why are they different, and is that why Serostim doesn't need to be refrigerated prior to reconstitution?

Serono would actually probably use rat CELLS rather than the proteins... I know that's what you meant to say, but I'm just tapping in on the side of accuracy here.

It's quite possible to micromanipulate mammalian cells and inject DNA from another source - the cells will then ideally express the gene of interest, and if it integrates into the genome (e.g. if you put it in an ex-retroviral sequence which promotes integration during homologous recombination) you've got a stably transfected cell line expressing hGH or whatever else you throw in there.

I'll need to do some more looking into it, but if Serono is using a tagged protein it would be easy to pull out of the mammalian cell extract very quickly... if not, I don't know why they would use mammalian cells instead of a bacterial system. The only thing I can think of is that they believe that using mammalian cells might promote proper folding to a higher degree because of mammalian chaperonins instead of prokaryotic chaperonins... but really, I think it's just because Serono developed that system first. It's easier to get mammalian cells to express mammalian proteins (in many cases) because of the size of the genes - but obviously others have made it possible in bacterial systems, so it can be done.

My best guess would be that Serono developed a mammalian expression system which was able to be up-scaled and economized, and said "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!".

-M

 

[Dr. M]

Oops - forgot to talk about the refrigeration.

This is likely an artifact of the way in which the hGH was lyophilized; if it is freeze-dried in high-salt buffer containing a small amount of detergent appropriate to the protein (all of this would need to be optimized, of course), it won't degrade significantly at room temperature. If lyophilization conditions have not been optimized for stability, refrigeration is required to ensure that the protein does not denature significantly prior to use.

-M

 

[gorilla_boy]

Fair enough. I'm just gonna go and bury this hatchet... be back in a few mins.

-M

LOL

A lot of great information has come out of this thread!

 

[manny78]

This thread is interesting, let's keep it civilized please. Thanks and have fun

 

[gorilla_boy]

This thread is interesting, let's keep it civilized please. Thanks and have fun

Quebec sucks

 

[Dr. M]

So does Ontario

-M