Radioimmunoassay of human placental lactogen

A sensitive and specific radioimmunossay procedure (RIA) has been developed for the measurement of Human Placental Lactogen (HPL). Pure HPL has been labelled with¹²⁵I and a specific activity of 100 μCi/μgm of HPL has been attained. Dextran-coated charcoal has been employed to separate the bound from the free hormone in radioimmuno-assay. The sensitivity of this technique has been found to be 0.2 ng of HPL. Intraassay and inter assay variations have been found to be less than 10%. This procedure has been adopted to establish the normal range of HPL in pregnant women at different periods of gestation, and to evaluate risk pregnancies.