serum

Examples of serum in the following topics:

• Complement Fixation

  • Complement fixation is a method that demonstrates antibody presence in patient serum.
  • Complement fixation is a classic method for demonstrating the presence of antibody in patient serum.
  • Patient serum is first added to the known antigen, and complement is added to the solution.
  • If the serum contains antibody to the antigen, the resulting antigen-antibody complexes will bind all of the complement.
  • Describe how the complement fixation assay can be used to test for the presence of a specific antibody in a patient's serum

• Plasma and Serum

  • Plasma is the liquid component of blood after all of the cells and platelets are removed; serum is plasma after coagulation factors have been removed.
  • Serum, the plasma component of blood which lacks coagulation factors, is similar to interstitial fluid in which the correct composition of key ions acting as electrolytes is essential for normal functioning of muscles and nerves.
  • Other components in the serum include proteins, which assist with maintaining pH and osmotic balance while giving viscosity to the blood; antibodies, or specialized proteins that are important for defense against viruses and bacteria; lipids, including cholesterol, which are transported in the serum; and various other substances including nutrients, hormones, metabolic waste, and external substances, such as drugs, viruses, and bacteria.
  • Human serum albumin, the most abundant protein in human blood plasma, is synthesized in the liver.
  • Albumin, which constitutes about one-half of the blood serum protein, transports hormones and fatty acids, buffers pH, and maintains osmotic pressures.

• Complex and Synthetic Media

  • By definition chemically defined media cannot contain either fetal bovine serum, bovine serum albumin, or human serum albumin as these products are derived from bovine or human sources and contain complex mixes of albumins and lipids.
  • The term 'chemically defined media' is often misused in the literature to refer to serum albumin-containing media.
  • Technical disadvantages to using serum include the undefined nature of serum, batch-to-batch variability in composition, and the risk of contamination.
  • There are increasing concerns about animal suffering inflicted during serum collection that add an ethical imperative to move away from the use of serum wherever possible.
  • Chemically defined media differ from serum-free media in that bovine serum albumin or human serum albumin with either a chemically defined recombinant version (which lacks the albumin associated lipids) or synthetic chemical such as the polymer polyvinyl alcohol which can reproduce some of the functions of serums.

• Serology

  • Serology is the study of blood serum and other bodily fluids for the identification of antibodies.
  • Serology is the scientific study of blood serum and other bodily fluids.
  • In practical immunological terms, serology is the diagnostic identification of antibodies in the serum.
  • Serological tests are performed on blood serum, and body fluids such as semen and saliva.
  • In practice, the term usually refers to the diagnostic identification of antibodies in the serum or the detection of antigens of infectious agents in serum.

• Neutralization Reaction

  • Many enveloped viruses are lysed when antiviral antibodies and serum complement disrupt membranes.
  • In this procedure, patient serum is mixed with a suspension of infectious virus particles of the same type as those suspected of causing disease in the patient.
  • A control suspension of virus is mixed with normal serum and is then inoculated into an appropriate cell culture.
  • If the patient serum contains antibody to the virus, the antibody will bind to the virus particles and prevent them from invading the cells in culture, thereby neutralizing the infectivity of the virus.

• Agglutination Reactions

  • These conjugated particles are reacted with patient serum presumably containing antibodies.
  • Latex agglutination can also be performed with the antigen conjugated to the beads for testing the presence of antibodies in a serum specimen.
  • Red blood cells are used as carriers to detect antibodies from a patient's serum.

• Precipitation Reactions

  • Precipitation reactions are serological assays for the detection of immunoglobulin levels from the serum of a patient with infection.
  • Describe how precipitation reactions can be used for the detection of immunoglobulin levels in the serum of a patient

• Immunoblot Procedures

  • The membrane can then be blocked with serum albumin or milk solution to prevent non-specific antibody binding.
  • In clinical diagnostic settings, immunoelectrophoresis is applied, which involves the electrophoresis of serum or urine followed by immunodiffusion.
  • Describe how Western blotting allows individuals to detect specific solubilized proteins from serum or cell or tissue extracts

• Specimen Collection

  • There are several types of specimens recommended for diagnosis of immunological diseases including: serum samples, virology swab samples, biopsy and necropsy tissue, cerebrospinal fluid, whole blood for PCR, and urine samples.
  • Serum is the preferred specimen source for serologic testing.
  • Serum is transferred to tightly-closing plastic tubes and stored at 2 – 8°C before shipment--which should always be prompt.
  • Acute serum should be collected at the onset of symptoms.

• Graft Rejection and Tissue Typing

  • Another technique, known as a micro-cytotoxicity assay, utilizes serum with known anti-HLA antibodies that recognize particular HLA loci (HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C, HLA-DP, HLA-DQ, HLA-DR) in order to match genetically similar individuals in hopes of performing a tissue transplantation.
  • In this technique, a donor's blood cells are MHC typed by mixing them with serum containing the anti-HLA antibodies.
  • This allows identification of cell's MHC indirectly based on the specificity of the known antibodies in the serum.