Nerve growth factor serum concentrations in healthy human volunteers: physiological variance and stability.
Human nerve growth factor (NGF) serum concentrations were measured in a healthy sample of 126 participants by a modified highly sensitive and specific two-site enzyme immunoassay. The measured NGF concentrations differ considerably from a normal distribution. The median NGF concentration was 19.68 pg/ml with an interquartile range of 11.06-41.74 pg/ml, which means that 50% of the NGF levels are in this range. In our healthy sample, we found no gender differences but a slight age-related decrease of NGF (r=-0.1326, P=0.1560). Moreover intraindividual stability of NGF was examined in ten volunteers, where no significant changes of serum NGF concentrations were detected over 4 weeks. This stability of our repetitive measurements over 4 weeks suggests that this neurotrophin may be an intraindividually solid marker at least in human serum.
Lang
Undine E
UE
Department of Psychiatry, Free University of Berlin, Eschenallee 3, 14050 Berlin, Germany. undine.lang@medizin.fu-berlin.de
Gallinat
Jürgen
J
Danker-Hopfe
Heidi
H
Bajbouj
Malek
M
Hellweg
Rainer
R
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020932:Nerve Growth Factor / Q000097:blood*; D012016:Reference Values; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
D020932:Nerve Growth Factor