The calf thymus superoxide dismutase: a protein active on cholesterol metabolism.

ABSTRACT

1. Recent studies on the new aspects of thymus physiology describing the correlation between thymus hormones and pituitary hormone secretion, are illustrated. 2. Subsequently, results of a series of experiments showing the effect of a calf thymus protein on cholesterol synthesis in rat hepatocyte cells are discussed. 3. The last part of this review is focused on the biochemical characteristics of this calf thymus protein that revealed an amino acid sequence that was found to be identical with regions of bovine erythrocyte superoxide dismutase. New perspectives of studies, focused on the isolation of possible superoxide dismutase membrane receptors, are described at the end of this review.