Calcitonin is a hormone that stimulates the incorporation of calcium into bone and thus arrest bone deterioration processes such as post-menopausal osteoporosis and Paget's disease. The synthetic hormone calcitonin has been shown to be effective therapeutically in arresting progressive bone loss in these disorders. An estimated 24 million American women have varying degrees of osteoporosis. Presently calcitonin which is produced by solid phase peptide methods is prohibitably expensive (approximately $400/mg) for widespread therapeutic use. Moreover, the application of DNA technology to the production of relatively small hormones, such as calcitonin, a peptide with 32 amino acids, presents special problems. In this proposal we present a novel method for the high yield production of calcitoni using recombinant DNA technology.
