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REVIEW article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary clinical, anatomical, and comparative pathology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1528008
This article is part of the Research Topic Innovative Approaches in Veterinary Pathology: Diagnostics, Therapeutics, and Zoonotic Threats View all 5 articles
Arginine Vasopressin and Copeptin: Comparative Review and Perspective in Veterinary Medicine
Provisionally accepted- 1 Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
- 2 College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States
Although arginine vasopressin (AVP) deficiency, AVP resistance, and primary polydipsia are important causes of polyuria and polydipsia (PUPD), measurement of AVP has never been implemented as a routine diagnostic test for patient care in either human or veterinary medicine, due to significant challenges with the methodologic reliability of laboratory assays for measuring AVP. Responses to a modified water deprivation test and/or a desmopressin acetate trial have been used as indirect markers of AVP deficiency or resistance. However, interpretations of these tests can be especially challenging in cases of partial AVP deficiency or resistance. Over the past decade, plasma copeptin (CoP), a glycopeptide comprising the C-terminal part of the AVP preprohormone, has mostly replaced AVP measurement in humans. When combined with CoP-based stimulation tests, such as hypertonic saline and arginine stimulation tests, plasma CoP measurement offers excellent diagnostic accuracy for the diagnosis and differentiation of cases of central diabetes insipidus (DI), nephrogenic DI, and primary polydipsia in humans. In dogs, CoP has recently been measured in saliva and serum using canine or human enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. This review will provide an update on the physiologic regulation of AVP production and secretion, the limitations of its measurement in human and veterinary medicine, as well as a summary of the indications and performance of CoP measurement in human and veterinary medicine to date. This is with a purpose to encourage validation and implementation of CoP measurement in veterinary medicine.
Keywords: ADH, AVP, desmopressin, water metabolism, PUPD arginine stimulation test, AVP: arginine vasopressin, CoP: copeptin, CRH: corticotropinreleasing hormone, CSWS: cerebral salt-wasting syndrome, CV: coefficient of variation, ELISA: enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, HSST: hypertonic saline stimulation test
Received: 14 Nov 2024; Accepted: 25 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Paulin, Schermerhorn, Unniappan and Snead. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mathieu Victor Paulin, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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