Randox Biosciences release two new oncology biomarkers

We are delighted to introduce you to two new oncology biomarkers that we have recently added to our portfolio; IL-18* and M2-PK*.

IL-18

IL-18 is a proinflammatory cytokine closely related to IL-1α and is believed to play a role in immune surveillance of various tumours. Elevated IL-18 is associated with various tumour types including prostate, lung, bladder and pancreatic cancer, as well as non-malignant conditions affecting the kidneys and bones.

The majority of IL-18 in serum is sequestered as an inactive dimer and only a small proportion is present as the active monomer. Current assays detect only monomeric IL-18. The use of monomeric assays has shown modest increases of this cytokine in cancer patient serum despite the observation that the bulk of IL-18 in serum was in a dimeric form and therefore undetectable by current assays.

Randox has developed an IL-18 RUO Elisa, a new biomarker using in-house antibodies which detects total IL-18 in serum. A clinical application study has shown that this immunoassay has the potential to detect individuals with early stage cancer from those with non-malignant disease.

M2-PK

Randox has also released a new immunoassay detecting M2 Pyruvate Kinase (M2-PK) in serum.   M2-PK is significantly increased in various cancers including colorectal and lung cancer. The assay incorporates novel immunoreagents which are highly specific to the M2-isoform despite the disease-associated M2-PK and the ubiquitous M1-PK isoform only differing by 22 out of 531 amino acids.

For more information, please email us at info@randoxbiosciences.com