Cholecystokinin (CCK) was measured in an extract of porcine brain by a bioassay system based on the enzyme release from isolated pancreatic acini and a specific radioimmunoassay. The tissue extract represented a crude peptide preparation of porcine brain that contained several molecular forms of CCK, most of them of high molecular weight including CCK-58. The different molecular forms of CCK in the porcine brain extract were isolated by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Determination of CCK-like bioactivity and immunoreactivity after HPLC was performed in parallel by bioassay and radioimmunoassay, respectively CCK-58 was the most abundant molecular form in the porcine brain extract, followed by CCK-33, and CCK-8. Both assay systems measured similar relative concentrations of all different molecular forms of CCK. To elucidate the biological potency of CCK-58 before and after tryptic cleavage, a CCK-58-enriched fraction was prepared by HPLC. Part of this material was quantitatively cleaved by trypsin resulting in the formation of small molecular forms of CCK. Bioactivity and immunoreactivity of equal amounts of cleaved and uncleaved material (= CCK-58) were determined by bioassay and radioimmunoassay in parallel. Cleavage of CCK-58 increased CCK-like bioactivity by 260% and CCK-like immunoreactivity by 310%. These results indicate that in a rat pancreatic acini system, porcine CCK-58 exerts 25-30% bioactivity compared to smaller CCK forms. The specific CCK antiserum G-160 seems to possess 25-30% affinity to CCK-58 in comparison to trypsin-cleaved CCK-58. It can be concluded that this antiserum exhibits an affinity to different molecular forms of CCK which parallels their relative bioactivity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)