T he observation that virtually all of the somatostatin-like immunoreactivity in the stomach consists of somatostatin-14 (S14), to the exclusion of somatostatin-28 (S28), suggests a unique pattern of prosomatostatin posttranslational processing. In order to examine the mechanisms by which S14 is produced from its precursor in the stomach, we investigated the biosynthesis of somatostatin in isolated canine fundic D cells. D cells pulse-labeled with [35S]cysteine revealed a cycloheximide inhibitable time-dependent incorporation of radioactivity into S14. A small fraction of radioactivity was incorporated into S28 but not into larger precursors. However, when the cells were incubated with monensin (1 microM), incorporation of radioactivity into a presumed somatostatin precursor was noted. Upon transfer of [35S]cysteine prelabeled cells to radioactivity-free medium, no conversion of S28 to S14 could be detected and the decrease of labeled S14 in cells correlated with a complimentary increase in the culture medium. Exogenous somatostatin inhibited somatostatin biosynthesis in a fashion that could be blocked by pertussis toxin pretreatment. Stimulation of prelabeled D cells with tetradecanoyl phorbol 13-acetate (10(-7) M) or forskolin (10(-4) M) for 2 h resulted in release of 41 and 33% of the newly synthesized radioactive S14, respectively, while only 9 and 6% of the total cell content of radioimmunoassayable somatostatin was secreted. These data suggest that: (a) somatostatin is synthesized in fundic D cells primarily as S14, (b) S14 is produced by rapid processing of a larger precursor but there is little, if any, conversion of S28 to S14, (c) somatostatin biosynthesis is autoregulated, and (d) newly synthesized S14 is preferentially released from D cells in response to stimulation.