Comparison of Mass Spectrometry and Clinical Assay Measurements of Circulating Fragments of B-Type Natriuretic Peptide in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure

Abstract

ProBNP 1-108 is measured by clinical BNP assays and contributes to the cumulative results of the BNP assay. However, the observation that clinically measured BNP correlates best with MS degradation fragments and relatively poorly with MS BNP 1-32 suggests that a significant component of circulating clinical BNP is composed of such fragments that are known to demonstrate little biological activity. There appear to be multiple pathways involved in the dysregulation of proBNP in HF, and both the processing of proBNP and the downstream degradation to BNP 1-32 appear to be critical.