Hepcidin levels in hyperprolactinemic women monitored by nanopore thin film based assay: correlation with pregnancy-associated hormone prolactin.

Hepcidin is a central regulator in human iron metabolism. Although it is often regarded as a promising indicator of iron status, the lack of effective quantification method has impeded the comprehensive assessment of its physiological and clinical significance. Herein we applied a newly established, nanopore film enrichment based hepcidin assay to examine the correlation between hepcidin and prolactin, the hormone with an important role during pregnancy and lactation. Women with pathologically elevated prolactin secretion (hyperprolactinemia) were found to have lower serum hepcidin compared to those with normal prolactin levels, without showing significant difference in other hepcidin-regulating factors. Moreover, prolactin-reducing drug bromocriptine mesylate resulted in elevated expression of the hepcidin in hyperprolactinemia patients. These findings suggest a possible role of prolactin in regulation of hepcidin, and may render hepcidin a useful biomarker for progress monitoring and treatment of iron-related diseases under hyperprolactinemic conditions. FROM THE CLINICAL EDITOR: The level of hepcidin has been shown to reflect the underlying iron status of the patient. Nonentheless, there is an urgent need of reliable, fast and easy-to-do hepcidin assay in the clinical setting. In this paper, the authors described a further modification of their previously described nanopore silica film-based enrichment approach for quantification of hepcidin and found correlation between hepcidin and prolactin. This new knowledge may add to current understanding of iron homeostasis during pregnancy.