Researchers studying immunity and inflammation now have a faster, easier alternative to traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) with new Promega bioluminescent assays launched today. The Lumit™ Cytokine Immunoassays can quantitatively detect released cytokines from cell culture samples in 70 minutes. These luminescent assays are scalable for use in basic research or high-throughput screening for drug discovery and development.

Faster Answers for Immunology and Cancer Research
Cytokines are signaling molecules critical for regulating inflammation and immune responses. Detecting and quantifying cytokines is crucial for many research areas including immunology, cancer and inflammatory diseases such as asthma and arthritis.

While traditional ELISA-based cytokine detection methods can require hours of hands-on time to produce results, Lumit™ Cytokine Immunoassays offer a simpler, faster protocol. Features of these kits include:

  • No-wash protocol
  • Add-and-read assay format
  • Broad linear range with no dilution steps required

“Anyone currently using ELISA assays to measure cytokine levels will be floored by the speed and simplicity of the Lumit assays,” says Dan Lazar, Senior Research Scientist at Promega. “These assays provide the opportunity to improve your efficiency – you’re going to be able to do a lot more work in a lot less time.”

Ready-to-use assays are available for six common targets: IL-1β IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IFN-γ and TNF-α. The assays can be adapted to 384-well format or automated on a liquid handler for high-throughput screening (HTS), biologics lot release and QC assay use.

Lumit™ Technology
Lumit™ Technology is based on the award-winning NanoBiT® complementation system. Antibodies are labeled with SmBiT and LgBiT, the two subunits of NanoLuc® luciferase. When the antibodies bind their target, SmBiT and LgBiT come into close proximity to form an active luciferase, generating a luminescence signal in the presence of substrate. The signal can be quantified using any standard luminescence, or multimodal, plate reader, such as the GloMax™ Discover.

In addition to the Lumit™ Cytokine Immunoassays launched today, as well as several other previously launched kits, Promega also offers the reagents to build a custom Lumit™ Immunoassay for targets not currently included in the portfolio.

Read the full press release here