Characterization of Secretin-Like Immunoreactivity in Pregnancy

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The plasma secretin-like immunoreactivity (SLI) in 23 healthy females was elevated in late pregnancy (34 ± 3 pmol/l) as compared with 23 non-pregnant female controls (12 ± 2pmol/l; p < 0.01). The plasma SLI in pregnancy eluted close to albumin on a Sephadex G-200 column, whereas 50–75% of the recovered SLI was displaced to the elution volume of free secretin when plasma was exposed to 6 mol/l urea. When 125I-labelled secretin was incubated with plasma in the absence of secretin antibodies, 40% of the intact label eluted in the void volume of a Sephadex G-50 Fine column in pregnancy, compared with only 18% in the nonpregnant state. The present study supports the notion that secretin circulates bound to plasma proteins and suggests that the protein binding of secretin is enhanced in late pregnancy, a feature common to several classical hormones.