Validation of coupled bioassay for inhibin by pituitary cell culture assay

Studies on the characterization of inhibin and inhibin-like factors have depended for the most part on the classicalin vitro pituitary cell culture assay. A major drawback with this assay is the turn-around time which is in the order of two weeks and consequently slows down purification efforts. The 24 h bioassay for inhibin has been found to be sufficiently sensitive and also statistically valid. Unfortunately, based as it is on a secondary response, ambiguities arise in interpreting the results. By including a parallel assay in which the mice are primed with human menopausal gonadotropin rather than human chorionic gonadotropin, it was possible to device the coupled bioassay. This enables distinguishing inhibin-like factors acting to suppress pituitary follicle stimulating hormone output from those acting at the level of gonads. In this study the coupled assay for inhibin has been compared with the classical pituitary cell culture assay in order to assess its biological and statistical validity. The data validates the bioassay on both the above counts and when considered in conjunction with the short turn-around time suggests that this assay can be highly useful in studies on isolation of inhibin from various sources.