Intestinal CaBP: a new quantitive index of vitamin D deficiency in the rat.

Rats raised from weaning on regiments adequate in calcium and phosphorus but deficient in vitamin D will have no detectable intestinal calcium-binding proteins (CaBP), whether or not they show other signs of vitamin D deficiency, such as hypocalcemia. When hypocalcemic, vitamin D-deficient animals were treated with 25-hydroxycholecalciferol, a vitamin D metabolite, they showed a dose-dependent increase in plasma calcium and CaBP; both responses can be described by a single linear relationship, which appears to apply whether the metabolite is 25-hydroxycholecalciferol or dihydrotachysterol. Since vitamin D status is only one determinant of plasma calcium, whereas CaBP (or its expression) appears to depend on vitamin D quantitatively, CaBP may be used as an index of vitamin D status, provided calcium intake is controlled.