Spontaneous endogenous pulsatile release of kisspeptin is temporally coupled with luteinizing hormone in healthy women.

Objective: To evaluate the presence of a spontaneous pulsatile release of kisspeptin and whether it is temporally coupled to LH pulses.

Design: Experimental study.

Setting: Academic medical center.

Patient(s): Thirty young healthy eumenorrheic women aged 20-37 years were included in the study group. All subjects were white women admitted to the Department of Gynecological Endocrinology, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland.

Intervention(s): Kisspeptin, FSH, LH, E2, PRL, and insulin were evaluated in all subjects at baseline.

Main Outcome Measure(s): All women underwent a pulsatility study measuring LH and kisspeptin plasma concentrations to assess the spontaneous episodic secretion of both hormones, sampling every 10 minutes for 2 hours from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. for a total of 12 blood samples. Detection and specific concordance (SC) algorithms were used to detect pulses and their concordance.

Result(s): A significant endogenous secretory pattern was demonstrated for both LH and kisspeptin over the 2-hour duration of the study (2.4 ± 0.1 peaks/2 h). The computation of the SC index showed for the first time that kisspeptin and LH are cosecreted and temporally coupled at time "0," and their peaks occur at the same point in time.

Conclusion(s): The present study provides evidence supporting the hypothesis that kisspeptin is highly relevant in the regulation and modulation of reproductive functions in humans.