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Twenty-Four-Hour Profile of Plasma Growth Hormone-Binding Protein

Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, and Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Z.H., T.A.) Haifa, Israel
The Pediatric Endocrine Unit, Kaplan Hospital (Z.Z.) Rehovot, Israel
The Department of Pediatrics, Rambam Medical Center (Z.H.) Haifa, Israel

Address requests for reprints to: Zeev Hochberg, M.D., D.Sc, Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, P.O.B. 9697, 31096 Haifa, Israel.

In experimental animals each burst of GH pulse is followed by a wave of receptor turnover and an increase in serum GH-binding protein (GH-BP), which occurs 60 min after the GH peak. The present report describes the 24-h profile of plasma GH-BP and its correlation to GH pulsatility in normal individuals. Four normally growing children in early puberty were the subjects of this study. Blood was withdrawn continuously for 24 h in 30-min fractions. Pulse analysis of both GH and GH-BP was performed by the Pulsar program. The vast majority of the GH pulses were accompanied by GH-BP pulses within 30 min. Correlation of plasma GH levels to GH-BP levels on the residual series above the smoothed baseline of all 172 individual samples was r = 0.447 (P < 0.001). Thus, plasma GHBP levels fluctuate rapidly in relation to the pulsatility of plasma GH levels. This may influence the GH disappearance rate and brings into question some of the deconvolution calculations of GH secretory impulses.

Received April 4, 1990.