Industrial Production of Glucagon

Glucagon can be produced in several ways: by chemical synthesis (review in Merrifield et al. 1983), from pancreas as a by-product from the production of insulin (review in Pingel et al. 1983) or by recombinant DNA technology utilizing either Escherichia coli (Ishizaki et al. 1992) or Saccharomyces cerivisiae (Moody et al. 1987). The present chapter describes the most recent development in the production of glucagon, namely production by recombinant DNA technology. In addition, we will summarize the improvements in analytical methods for assessing the purity and potency of the glucagon so produced.