Development of a bioassay system for human growth hormone determination with close correlation to immunoassay

Serum growth hormone (GH) level is measured largely through immunoassays in clinical practice. However, a few cases with bioinactive and immunoreactive GH have also been reported. We describe here a new bioassay system for GH determination using the BaF/GM cell line, which proliferates in a dose-dependent manner on hGH addition; cell proliferation was blocked by anti-hGH antibody. This bioassay had the lowest detection limit (∼0.02 ng/ml) reported thus far and the highest specificity for GH. The bioassay results were compared with those of an immunoradiometric assay across 163 patient samples in various endocrine states. A close correlation (the ratio of bioactivity/immunoreactivity was 1.04 ± 0.33, mean ± SD) was observed between bioactivity and immunoreactivity in these samples. The newly developed system is a specific, sensitive, easy, and fast bioassay system for GH determination; we consider it useful for evaluating GH bioactivity in various endocrine states.