Everything about Serum Albumin totally explained
Serum albumin, often referred to simply as
albumin, is the most abundant
plasma protein in humans and other
mammals. Albumin is essential for maintaining the
osmotic pressure needed for proper distribution of
body fluids between intravascular compartments and body tissues. It also acts as a plasma carrier by non-specifically binding several
hydrophobic steroid hormones and as a transport protein for
hemin and
fatty acids.
Types
- The human version is human serum albumin.
- Bovine serum albumin, or BSA, is commonly used in immunodiagnostic procedures, clinical chemistry reagents, cell culture media, protein chemistry research and molecular biology laboratories (usually to leverage its non-specific protein binding properties).
General characteristics
Albumin (when ionized in water at pH 7.4, as found in the body) is negatively charged. The
glomerular basement membrane is also negatively charged in the body; some studies suggest that this prevents the filtration of albumin in the urine. According to this theory, that charge plays a major role in the selective exclusion of albumin from the glomerular filtrate. A defect in this property results in
nephrotic syndrome leading to albumin loss in the urine. Nephrotic syndrome patients are sometimes given albumin to replace the lost albumin.
Because smaller animals (for example
rats) function at a lower
blood pressure, they need less
oncotic pressure to balance this, and thus need less albumin to maintain proper fluid distribution.
Serum albumin contains eleven distinct binding domains for hydrophobic compounds. One
hemin and six long-chain
fatty acids can bind to serum albumin at the same time .
Further Information
Get more info on 'Serum Albumin'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://serum_albumin.totallyexplained.com">Serum albumin Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
