Inflammation

Inflammation is a local answer of an organism to an injury and is a component of the innate immune system.

Inflammation is characterized by an increased blood flow to the local zone of injury, infiltration by leukocytes, which result in redness, pain and heat. All those mechanisms help the body to eliminate foreign agents such as microbes, damaged cells and tissues. It also starts tissue repair process. Actors of inflammation are blood vessels, immune cells (mast cells and basophils) and signalling molecules.

While inflammation is a major defense mechanism, it can sometimes dysfunction leading to pathological states linked to chronic inflammation such as atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis… It highlights the importance of a strict regulation of inflammation reaction by an organism.

Inflammation process begins by acute phase and can evolve to chronic inflammation. Process is coordinated by inflammatory mediators which are messengers that act on blood vessels and immune cells. Inflammatory mediators are of various types: prostaglandins, cytokines, histamine, nitric oxide…

Bertin Bioreagent has a long history of biomarker assay development in the field of inflammation, with the set up of the first PGE2 ELISA in the mid 80’s.

Focused products:

Sampling tubes with Indomethacin:

At early stage after collection, several events may affect the concentration of the targeted compound. In order to preserve your sample between sampling and analysis, Bertin Bioreagent has developed a range of solutions. For measuring prostaglandins (PGE2, Thromboxane B2, 2,3-dinor Thromboxane B2, 11-dehydro Thromboxane B2…), we recommend to block the ex-vivo formation of prostaglandin with indomethacin, a cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitor. Indomethacin prevents ex-vivo formation of Thromboxane B2 and of other prostaglandins which can not be avoided using anticoagulant alone.