Serum (blood)

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Preparation of serum cups for a lipids panel designed to test cholesterol levels in a patient's blood

Serum (

]

The study of serum is

To obtain serum, a blood sample is allowed to clot (coagulation). The sample is then centrifuged to remove the clot and blood cells, and the resulting liquid supernatant is serum.[3]

Clinical and laboratory uses

The serum of

infectious disease can be used as a biopharmaceutical in the treatment of other people with that disease, because the antibodies generated by the successful recovery are potent fighters of the pathogen. Such convalescent serum (antiserum) is a form of immunotherapy.[citation needed
]

Serum is also used in protein electrophoresis, due to the lack of fibrinogen which can cause false results.[citation needed]

growth media used for eukaryotic cell culture. A combination of FBS and the cytokine leukemia inhibitory factor was originally used to maintain embryonic stem cells,[4] but concerns about batch-to-batch variations in FBS have led to the development of serum substitutes.[5]

Purification strategies

Blood serum and plasma are some of the largest sources of biomarkers, whether for diagnostics or therapeutics. Its vast dynamic range, further complicated by the presence of lipids, salts, and post-translational modifications, as well as multiple mechanisms of degradation, presents challenges in analytical reproducibility, sensitivity, resolution, and potential efficacy. For analysis of biomarkers in blood serum samples, it is possible to do a pre-separation by free-flow electrophoresis that usually consists of a depletion of serum albumin protein.[6] This method enables greater penetration of the proteome via separation of a wide variety of charged or chargeable analytes, ranging from small molecules to cells.[citation needed]

Usage note

Like many other mass nouns, the word serum can be pluralized when used in certain senses. To speak of multiple serum specimens from multiple people (each with a unique population of antibodies), physicians sometimes speak of sera (the Latin plural, as opposed to serums).[citation needed] Etymologically serum is derived from the Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to flow, run”).

See also

References

  • Martin, Elizabeth A., ed. (2007). Concise Medical Dictionary (7th ed.). . Retrieved 8 September 2009.
  • Wang, Wendy; Srivastava, Sudhir (2002). "Serological Markers". In
    Macmillan Reference USA
    . pp. 1088–1090.
  1. ^ "serum". The Free Dictionary. Retrieved 2019-10-06.
  2. ^ Kaplan L (2005-10-06). "Serum Toxicology" (PDF). Clinical Pathology/Laboratory Medicine 2005. Columbia University. Retrieved 2020-01-28.
  3. PMID 1381403
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  4. .
  5. .
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External links