Application

The antibody is recommended to use in various immunological techniques, including ELISA and Immunobloting.

General description

Folic acid (pteroylglutamic acid) and Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) are essential constituents for normal growth of mammalian cells. The normal serum range is 3-16 ng/ml for folate and 0.2-0.9 ng/ml for vitamin B12. Folic acid plays an important role in cellular metabolic activities such as functioning as a cofactor in the one-carbon metabolism for DNA and RNA synthesis as well as nucleotide and amino acid biosynthesis. A lack of folate or folic acid nutrition can lead to folic acid deficiency and result in several health problems, including macrocytic anemia, elevated plasma homocysteine, cardiovascular disease, birth defects, carcinogenesis, muscle weakness and walking difficulty.2 These deficiencies may appear in pregnant women, alcoholics, those whose diets do not include raw fruits and vegetables and people with structural or functional damage to the small intestine. Vitamin B12 and folic acid are metabolically interrelated.In the absence of vitamin B12, 5MTHFA cannot be converted to tetrahydrofolic acid and enter the metabolic pool of 1-carbon fragment acceptors. Since this is the only known metabolic pathway involving 5MTHFA in humans, B12 depletion will cause a decrease in the availability of other folic acid derivatives required for miscellaneous biosynthetic pathways, including thymidylate synthetase, an enzyme necessary for DNA synthesis. Vitamin B12 and folate deficiencies are the most common causes of megaloblastic anemia, abnormal hemopoiesis, interference in the maintenance of normal nerve tissue and general intracellular uptake and function disorders in humans. It is hematologically and clinically indistinguishable thus it is necessary to determine the level of vitamin B12 in the serum and folate in both the serum and red blood cells to establish the etiology of the megaloblastic anemia and treatment respectively.Monoclonal Anti-Folic acid recognizes folate and an epitope present on both biologically active analog 5MTHFA and folic acid. The antibody reacts with Folic acid or 5MTHFA either free or bound to a carrier, such as KLH or BSA. The antibody binds folate in human plasma and serum (when it is bound to the endogenous folate binder). The antibody does not cross react with tetrahydrofolic (THFA), folinic acid (FNA), dihydrofolic acid (FAH2, citrovorum factor, leucovorin).

Immunogen

5-Methyltetrahydrofolic acid (5MTHFA) conjugated to KLH

Other Notes

This product is for R&D use only, not for drug, household, or other uses.

Physical form

Supplied as a solution in 0.01 M phosphate buffered saline pH 7.4, containing 15 mM sodium azide as a preservative.