Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10532920 | Analytical Biochemistry | 2010 | 4 Pages |
Abstract
The Limulus reaction is an application of the defense mechanism of horseshoe crab for endotoxin detection. Endotoxin is a component of the cell wall in the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria, and causes fever or shock when it enters the human blood stream. For endotoxin detection, gel formation or turbidity of the coagulation factor chromogen or fluorescence-modified peptide is used. However, these conventional methods have problems with regard to their measurement time or sensitivity. We recently obtained a mutant firefly luciferase that has a luminescence intensity over 10-fold higher than that of the wild type. Therefore, we developed a new endotoxin detection method that combines the Limulus reaction and bioluminescence using mutant luciferase. The new method detects 0.0005Â EU/ml of endotoxin within 15Â min.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
Authors
Kenichi Noda, Hitoshi Goto, Yuji Murakami, Abo Bakr F. Ahmed, Akio Kuroda,