MICROVUETMPan-Specific C3 Reagent Kit

The complement system (C-system) is a protein cascade of the immune system consisting of greater than 30 plasma and cell membrane proteins. It provides a first line of defense against microbial attacks against the body, orchestrating their clearance and initiation of long-term immunity. As revealed recently, the C-system also has important activities in some non-immune physiological processes, such as conception and tissue regeneration. Besides its essential role in maintaining health, the importance of the C-system in medicine lies in the fact that a large number of acute and chronic diseases are associated with abnormalities in complement function. Accordingly, quantitative analysis of different complement proteins and their activation by-products are of great practical importance in experimental and clinical medicine. There are numerous immunological methods for complement testing, including ELISA-based kits measuring complement cleavage products as markers of complement activation. However, most of the commercially available ELISAs are human specific, leaving an expanding need for animal testing of complement activation largely unmet.