Mercodia Glucagon ELISA – a Gold Standard

A revolutionizing ELISA for sensitive and specific determination of glucagon in human samples. A research tool advancement that allows science to take the next step.

The highly specific monoclonal antibodies used in this assay enable accurate determination of glucagon without significant cross-reactivity to other circulating pro-glucagon-derived peptides, e.g. glicentin.

Mercodia Glucagon ELISA was launched in 2013 and has since contributed to advancing research by, for the first time, allowing specific and sensitive measurements of glucagon. A few years later, a glicentin ELISA was launched that made it possible to accurately measure circulating glicentin, and with help of this assay, it was shown that levels of glicentin are increasing during an OGTT in gastrectomy patients to levels not seen in any patient group before. Levels of oxyntomodulin are also increasing, but not to the same extent. When such high levels of glicentin appear in the circulation, also a low cross-reactivity will disturb the measurement of glucagon and give rise to falsely high levels. After discussions with different research groups, a sequential protocol that removes the small amount of cross-reactivity to glicentin was developed. As of October 1st, 2020, the assay protocol of Mercodia Glucagon ELISA 10-1271-01 is updated to make the sequential protocol default, abolishing cross-reactivity to glicentin. To run the old, simultaneous protocol, please refer to Technical Note TN34-161.

Glucagon ELISA test characteristics

• Samples: Serum, EDTA plasma and cell culture medium.
• Sample volume: 25 µL
• Assay range: 1.5-130 pmol/L (5.95-453pg/mL)
• Detection limit: 0.75 pmol/L
• Incubation: 18-22 h (overnight) + 1 h, 30 min
• Detection method: absorbance

References

• Kahn SE, Mather KJ, Arslanian SA, et al. Hyperglucagonemia does not explain the β-cell hyperresponsiveness and insulin resistance in dysglycemic youth compared with adults: lessons from the rise study. Diabetes Care. Published online June 15, 2021:dc210460.
• Zhu X, Lin C, Li L, Hu S, Cai X, Ji L. SGLT2i increased the plasma fasting glucagon level in patients with diabetes: A meta-analysis. Eur J Pharmacol. 2021;903:174145.
• Bevacqua RJ, Dai X, Lam JY, et al. CRISPR-based genome editing in primary human pancreatic islet cells. Nat Commun. 2021;12(1):2397.
• Alexiadou K, Cuenco J, Howard J, et al. Proglucagon peptide secretion profiles in type 2 diabetes before and after bariatric surgery: 1-year prospective study. BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care. 2020;8(1):e001076.
• Stern JH, Smith GI, Chen S, Unger RH, Klein S, Scherer PE. Obesity dysregulates fasting-induced changes in glucagon secretion. J Endocrinol. 2019;243(2):149-160.