LEGEND MAX™ Rat Erythropoietin (EPO) ELISA Kit with Pre-coated Plates 5 Pre-coated Plates

Erythropoietin (EPO) is the most important hormone regulating erythropoiesis. It is a glycoprotein also known as hematopoietin. EPO is mainly produced by kidney and liver in response to hypoxia to induce red blood cell production. Rat EPO is a secreted protein of 166 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of ~18.5 kD. However, it migrates on SDS-PAGE at ~35-50 kD due to heavy glycosylation. EPO is closely related to thrombopoietin (TPO) and highly conserved across species, with rat EPO being 95% and 79% identical to mouse and human, respectively.

EPO functions through binding to its receptor, EPO R, a homodimer, on erythoid precursors, and promotes their differentiation and maturation. As expected, serum levels of EPO are elevated in response to various conditions that result in tissue hypoxia (e.g., blood loss, high altitude, cardiac or pulmonary disease, and anemia). Increased EPO levels can also be due to increased production by cancer cells of the liver and kidney. Decreased levels of EPO are often seen with chronic renal failure and other chronic diseases or chemotherapy, which causes anemia. Rat endogenous EPO and recombinant EPO share the same amino acid sequence, with differences in the glycosylation profiles.

The LEGEND MAX™ Rat EPO ELISA kit is a Sandwich Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) with a 96-well strip plate that is pre-coated with a rat monoclonal anti-EPO antibody. The Detection Antibody is a biotinylated polyclonal goat anti-EPO antibody. This kit is specifically designed for the accurate quantitation of rat EPO from cell culture supernatant, serum, plasma (heparin), tissue homogenates and other biological fluids. This kit is analytically validated with ready-to-use reagents.