A leptin sandwich ELISA kit unusable for domestic animals

ABSTRACT

An instance of hormone assay method flaw is reported. In this journal Chronobiology International, two papers appeared in which an ELISA method for human serum or plasma was utilized for blood serum of horse and sheep, respectively. From our testing, it is resulted that such method does not work at all for equine, sheep and other animal species. The use of commercial hormone assay kits for heterologous species always needs a careful validation procedure. First, the same hormone molecule by different species could not share enough homology to be regognized by and react with antibodies utilized in the method. Furthermore, even with a full overlap of the molecules, possible interferences by other components of the sample (matrix effect) have to be considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Hormone assay
• ELISA
• leptin
• horse
• sheep

Complying with ethics of experimentation

The work was carried out according to the guidelines of the Animal Ethics Committee of the University of Camerino. The animal care procedures also followed the European recommendations for the protection of experimental animals (EU Directive 2010/63/EU).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Health and safety

Authors state that all mandatory laboratory health and safety procedures have been complied.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by grants from the University of Camerino (SAI00084 - F.A.R./LT).