Endotoxin Highlight

Lipopolysaccharides (LPS), commonly known as endotoxins, are found in Gram-negative bacteria outer membrane. Much evidence has shown the ability of LPS in eliciting immune response in humans and animals including shock, coagulation, fever and inflammation. At high concentration, LPS evoke a massive circulation of macrophages and cause major clinical issue in septic shock treatment in human. Despite the complication that LPS can cause in human, LPS also post a major concern in animal research due to the ability of LPS in inducing immune response. During animal immunization, an antigen is introduced for specific antibody production against the antigen. However, the immune response is manifested with the presence of LPS and it often lead to the antibody production against LPS instead of the antigen introduced. Gram-negative bacteria such as E-coli gain much attention in bioengineering and microbiology research. E-coli are best known as the versatile host for protein expression, recombinant protein production and being a vector. Though, there are many benefits for using E-coli in research, the LPS that are in conjunction could affect the research accuracy and specificity. For that reason, LPS removal is crucial for all kind of animal research especially when it is related to gram-negative bacteria.