Technical and clinical validation of a new immunoradiometric assay for human osteocalcin

The measurement of circulating osteocalcin or bone GLA protein (BGP) constitutes a well established and non-invasive means for evaluating preferentially the bone formation rate, but most available commercial assays suffer from several technical constraints, notably a rapid degradation of BGP at room temperature or after thawing and the inability to measure subnormal values. We evaluated, from a technical and a clinical viewpoint, a newly available two-site sandwich immunoradiometric assay (IRMA) using standard of human origin and two different monoclonal antibodies. The theoretical and functional assay detection limit was 0.3 ng/ml. Concentrations of BGP progressively decreased when the serum was left at 4 degrees C or at room temperature (mean apparent loss of 15% after 24 h). Two cycles of freezing-thawing only lightly reduced the BGP concentrations. The mean (+/- SD) BGP concentration was 19.6 +/- 7.9 ng/ml in healthy subjects (NI, N = 61); the normal range was 8.1-35.6 ng/ml. There was a marked difference between pre- and postmenopausal women: 15.1 +/- 4.4 vs 22.3 +/- 8.4 ng/ml, respectively (p < 0.05). The mean BGP concentration in patients with tumor-induced hypercalcemia (N = 29) was not significantly different from NI, but nine patients (31%) had subnormal levels and five (17%) had elevated BGP levels. Concentrations of BGP were significantly increased in patients with hyperparathyroidism (N = 14) (45.1 +/- 21.0 ng/ml) and significantly lower than NI in patients with hypoparathyroidism (N = 18) (7.3 +/- 4.6 ng/ml). Concentrations of BGP were also measured by a classical radioimmunoassay using bovine standards and tracer; the correlations between both sets of measurements were significant in all groups, except in patients with hypoparathyroidism. In summary, this newly available IRMA for measuring circulating human BGP appears to be quite sensitive, reproducible and robust. It should be especially useful for investigating clinical conditions characterized by a low bone formation rate.