Cosmo Bio D-Serine Colorimetric Assay Kit

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D-form amino acids are components of bacterial cell wall peptidoglycan layers, but they are also present in mammals and display specific and important physiological activities. Particularly high D-serine levels are present in brain tissue where D-serine functions as an important co-agonist of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors (NMDR), involved in regulating higher brain function such as memory and learning. D-serine is suggested to play a role in neurodegeneration associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

D-serine is commonly assayed by HPLC or GC following conversion of D-serine to diastereomer derivatives. Such methods are time-consuming, require expensive instrumentation and are not suitable for processing large numbers of samples. The D-Serine Colorimetric Assay Kit from Cosmo Bio employs the D-form specific enzyme D-serine dehydratase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (DsdSC), enabling the quantitation of D-serine by spectrophotometric measurement.

DsdSC catalyses the conversion of D-serine to pyruvate and ammonia. In the presence of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), pyruvate is reduced to lactate with the concomitant oxidation of NADH to NAD. The reaction can be monitored by measuring the decrease in absorbance at 340 nm due to the oxidation of NADH. The D-serine concentration in unknown samples is determined by comparison with a standard curve.

Advantages include: convenient enzymatic reaction, with colorimetric detection for reading on standard UV/VIS absorbance microplate readers (340 nm); suitable for a large numbers of samples; detection range of 0.01-1 mM.