The kinetics and metabolism in various organs of three bioactive products of progastrin, the small sulfated and nonsulfated gastrin-6 and the large nonsulfated gastrin-52, were examined during intravenous administration in anesthetized pigs. The kidney, hindlimb, liver, head, and gut eliminated the hexapeptides efficiently, with a fractional extraction ranging from 0.50 to 0.28 (P < 0.001-0.05). No metabolism was recorded in the lungs, and sulfation was without influence on the extraction of gastrin-6. Gastrin-52 was eliminated only in the kidney and the head, with a fractional extraction between 0.23 and 0.11 (P < 0.01-0.05). The half-life of sulfated and nonsulfated gastrin-6 was 1.5 ± 0.4 and 1.4 ± 0.3 min, the metabolic clearance rate (MCR) was 80.8 ± 7.6 and 116.0 ± 13.5 ml · kg¹ · min¹ (P < 0.05), and the apparent volume of distribution (V_dss) was 199.3 ± 70.1 and 231.4 ± 37.3 ml/kg, respectively. The decay of gastrin-52 in plasma was biexponential. The half-lives of this biexponential after a bolus injection were 3.9 ± 0.5 (T_1/2) and 25.7 ± 1.4 (T_1/2) min, and the MCR and V_dss were 4.2 ± 0.4 ml · kg¹ · min¹ and 116.2 ± 16.2 ml/kg¹. We conclude that there is a differential elimination of progastrin products in splanchnic and nonsplanchnic tissue, which depends on the chain length of the peptides. Sulfation of gastrin-6 had no influence on the organ-specific extraction but reduced the MCR. Our results are in keeping with previous studies of nonsulfated gastrin-17, which is extracted in the kidney, head, limb, and gut but not in the liver.