Description
Introduction: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a glycoprotein involved in cell adhesion. It is normally produced during fetal development, but the production of CEA stops before birth. Therefore, it is not usually present in the blood of healthy adults, although levels are raised in heavy smokers. CEA is a glycosyl phosphatidyl inositol (GPI)-cell surface anchored glycoprotein whose specialized sialofucosylated glycoforms serve as functional colon carcinoma L-selectin and E-selectin ligands, which may be critical to the metastatic dissemination of colon carcinoma cells.
Principle of the Assay: The microtiter plate provided in this kit has been pre-coated with an antibody specific to CEA. Standards or samples are then added to the appropriate microtiter plate wells with a HRP-conjugated antibody preparation specific for CEA and incubated. Then a TMB (3,3',5,5' tetramethyl-benzidine) substrate solution is added to each well. The enzyme-substrate reaction is terminated by the addition of stop solution and the color is measured spectrophotometrically at a wavelength of 450 nm +/- 2 nm. The concentration of CEA in the samples is then determined by comparing the O.D. of the samples to the standard curve