Isolation and Identification of Prostaglandins from Human Seminal Plasma

A depressor substance which stimulates smooth muscle was discovered by Goldblatt and von Euler in extracts of human seminal plasma and of the vesicular glands of sheep (1,Z).The active principle, called prostaglandin, wm shown to have acidic properties.Investigations on its occurrence and biological effects were carried out by von Euler (2) and more recently by El&son (3).Two biologically active compounds (prostaglandin El and F& were isolated from sheep vesicular glands by Bergstrijm and Sjiivall (5).Recently, we reported on the structures (Fig. 1) of these compounds (6) and described the isolation of two additional compounds, i.e.PGE, and PGEa (7).The structure of PGE, w&s also elucidated (Fig. 1).Reduction of the keto group in the PGE compounds results in formation of two stereoisomers from each of PGEI, PGEZ, and PGEs (7,8).These are designated PGF1, and PGFu, PGF2, and PGFz,g, and PGFh and PGFaa.PGFzc, was recently identified in normal lung ti&sue from sheep and pig (9) and from sheep iris.*Recently, prostaglandin El was identified in human seminal fluid, mainly by an isotope dilution technique (10).The present report is concerned with further separation and identification of smooth muscle-stimulating factors in human seminal plasma by methods which have recently been developed.