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Clinical Chemistry 48: 2253-2256, 2002;
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(Clinical Chemistry. 2002;48:2253-2256.)
© 2002 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Technical Briefs

Effect of Incubation Time on Recognition of Various Forms of Prolactin in Serum by the DELFIA Assay

Can Hekim, Henrik Alfthan, Jari T. Leinonen and Ulf-Håkan Stenmana

Department of Clinical Chemistry, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Haartmaninkatu 8, FIN-00290 Helsinki, Finland;

aauthor for correspondence: fax 358-9-47174804, e-mail ulf-hakan.stenman@hus.fi

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Prolactin (PRL) is a 23-kDa protein hormone secreted mainly by the lactotrophs in the anterior pituitary gland and also at low concentrations by several other tissues (1). In serum, PRL occurs in various molecular forms, including the physiologically active monomeric form, also called little PRL (L-PRL; molecular mass, 23 kDa), big PRL (B-PRL; molecular mass, 40–62 kDa), and big-big PRL (BB-PRL; molecular mass, 150–170 kDa), which also is called macroprolactin (2)(3)(4). L-PRL is usually the dominant form in the serum of healthy and hyperprolactinemic individuals. The exact structures of B-PRL and BB-PRL are not fully understood: B-PRL is thought to consist of oligomers of PRL, whereas BB-PRL has been suggested to consist of an IgG complex with one or two PRL molecules (5)(6).

Hyperprolactinemia is mostly caused by a pituitary adenoma, but it may also be caused by macroprolactin (7)(8). Because the big forms of PRL have decreased bioactivity, they do not cause clinical symptoms of hyperprolactinemia (7)(9). Of hyperprolactinemic individuals, 15–26% are macroprolactinemic (10), which often leads to a false diagnosis of hyperprolactinemia. The results obtained by various PRL assays vary highly in samples containing macroprolactin (11)(12)(13). This has been thought to be caused by differences in the ability of the antibodies used to recognize big forms of PRL. It is generally thought that assays with high specificity for monomeric PRL best reflect the physiologic state of the patient.

Our aim was to characterize the immunoreactivity of the various molecular forms of PRL and to develop an assay that preferentially recognizes the biologically active monomeric form of PRL.

Serum was obtained from 41 patients with PRL concentrations >500 mIU/L (conversion factor, . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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