This TNF alpha ELISA is intended to determine TNF alpha in plasma, serum, stool, cell culture.

• Sensitivity: 10 pg/ml
• Dynamic Range: 10 to 500 pg/ml
• Sample Size: 100 μl
• Sample Type: Serum
• Incubation Time: 3.5 hours

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) is a cytokine involved in systemic inflammation. The primary role of TNFα is in the regulation of immune cells. TNFα stimulates the acute phase reaction, induces apoptotic cell death, cellular proliferation and differentiation,inhibits tumor genesis and viral replication. Dysregulation of TNFα production has been implicated in a variety of human diseases like cancer and Alzheimers.

TNF Alpha is secreted by macrophages, monocytes, neutrophils, T-cells as well as natural killer cells following their stimulation by bacterial lipopolysaccharides. Human TNFα is a non-glycosylated protein with a molecular weight of 17.5 kDa and a length of 157 amino acids. TNFα shows a wide spectrum of biological activities. It causes cytolysis and/or cytostasis of many tumor cell lines in vitro. Within hours after injection, TNFα leads to destruction of small blood vessels within malignant tumors.

TNFα enhances phagocytosis and cytotoxicity in neutrophilic granulocytes and modulates the expression of many other proteins. Elevated TNFα serum levels are found in patients suffering from Crohn’s disease, ulcerating colitis or rheumatoid arthritis.