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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 281, Issue 9, 9, March 3, 2006
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Classics
Prostaglandins and Related Factors. 15. The Structures of Prostaglandin E1, F1
, and F1
(Bergström, S., Ryhage, R., Samuelsson, B., and Sjövall, J. (1963) J. Biol. Chem. 238, 3555–3564
On the Mechanism of the Biosynthesis of Prostaglandins E1 and F1
(Hamberg, M., and Samuelsson, B. (1967) J. Biol. Chem. 242, 5336–5343)
Sune Karl Bergström (1916–2004) was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Upon completing high school he went to work at the Karolinska Institute as an assistant to Erik Jorpes where he did research on the biochemistry of fats and steroids. Jorpes was sufficiently impressed with Bergström that in 1938 he sponsored a year-long research fellowship for him at the University of London. Then, in 1940, Bergström received a Swedish-American Fellowship, which allowed him to study for 2 years at Columbia University and to conduct research at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research in New Jersey. He returned to Sweden in 1942 and received doctorates in medicine and biochemistry from the Karolinska Institute 2 years later. He was then appointed assistant in the biochemistry department of Karolinska's Medical Nobel Institute.
Bergström's involvement with prostaglandins started in 1945 at a meeting of the Physiological Society of the Karolinska Institute. There he met Ulf von Euler who had been doing research on prostaglandins. Von Euler asked Bergström if he might be interested in studying some of his lipid extracts of sheep vesicular glands. Using Lyman Craig's countercurrent extraction device, which was the subject of a previous Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) Classic (1), Bergström was able to purify the crude extract about 500 times. However, his work was interrupted for a few years when he was appointed chair of physiological chemistry at the University of Lund in 1948.
When Bergström resumed his research on prostaglandins, he was aided by his graduate student Bengt Ingemar Samuelsson. Samuelsson, who was born in Halmstad, Sweden, in 1934, had enrolled at the University of Lund to study medicine when he came under the mentorship of Bergström. Using countercurrent fractionations and partition chromatography, Bergström was able to isolate small amounts of prostaglandin E1 and F1 by 1957 (2). A year later, Bergström was appointed professor of chemistry at Karolinska, and he moved his research group with him to Stockholm. Samuelsson received his doctorate in medical science from the Karolinska Institute in 1960 and his medical degree in 1961.
At Karolinska, Bergström started to collaborate with Ragnar Ryhage who had built a combination gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer. Using this instrument, Bergström, Samuelsson, and Ryhage were able to deduce the structures of prostaglandins E1, F1, and F1 from mass spectrometric identification of the products formed when the prostaglandins were treated with a weak acid or base. These structure determinations are discussed in the first Classic reprinted here. By 1962, Bergström and his colleagues had isolated and determined the structures of six different prostaglandins.
After completing the structural work on the prostaglandins, Samuelsson spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow with E. J. Corey in the Department of Chemistry at Harvard University, where he was able to study theoretical and synthetic organic chemistry. He returned to the Karolinska Institute as assistant professor of medical chemistry and resumed work on the prostaglandins. The second JBC Classic deals with some of Samuelsson's research on the biosynthesis of prostaglandins, an area in which he contributed considerable knowledge. In the paper, Samuelsson follows the conversion of 8,11,14-eicosatrienoic acid to prostaglandin E1 and prostaglandin F1, using 3H and 14C labeling, focusing especially on the initial step of the process.
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Bergström remained at Karolinska, serving as dean of its medical school from 1963 to 1966 and as Rector of the Institute from 1969 to 1977. He was chairman of the Nobel Foundation's Board of Directors from 1975 to 1987, and from 1977 to 1982 he served as chairman of the World Health Organization's Advisory Committee on Medical Research. He retired from teaching in 1981, choosing to devote his full time to research at Karolinska.
Independently, both Bergström and Samuelsson continued to investigate prostaglandins and related compounds throughout their scientific careers. In honor of their contributions to this field, they were awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with John R. Vane "for their discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related biologically active substances."
Samuelsson's research has been recognized by numerous awards and honors in addition to the Nobel Prize. These include the A. Jahres Award in Medicine from Oslo University (1970), the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (1975), the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award (1977), the Ciba-Geigy Drew Award for biomedical research (1980), the Gairdner Foundation Award (1981), the Bror Holberg Medal of the Swedish Chemical Society (1982), and the Abraham White Distinguished Scientist Award (1991). Samuelsson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1984.1
Bergström also received many awards, including the Albert Lasker Award in 1977, Oslo University's Anders Jahre Prize in Medicine in 1970, and Columbia University's Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in 1975. He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (and served as its president from 1983 to 1985), the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences (1973), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.2
FOOTNOTES
1 Biographical information on Bengt Samuelsson was taken from Ref. 3. 
2 Biographical information on Sune Bergström was taken from Ref. 4.
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