C-Reactive Protein (CRP) has been regarded as an acute-phase reactant in serum. It consists of five single subunits with a molecular weight of 23,000, each noncovalently linked and assembled as a cyclic pentamer with a molecular weight range from 110,000 to 140,000 CRP has been found to be present in increased amounts in serum of patients with a wide variety of diseases including infections by gram-positive and gram-negative organisms acute phase of rheumatoid arthritis, myocardial infarction, malignant tumors abdominal abscesses, peritonitis, and inflammation of the bile duct. Less consistently, CRP may be found in patients with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and multiple sclerosis: in active tuberculosis acute infectious hepatitis, and certain viral infections; in many other necrotic and inflammatory diseases: in burned patients; and after surgery trauma.
Although the detection of elevated levels of CRP in the serum is not specific for any particular disease, it is a useful indicator of inflammatory processes. CRP levels rise in serum within hours of the onset of inflammation, reaching a peak during the acute stage and decreasing with the resolution of inflammation or trauma. The detection of CRP is a more reliable and sensitive indicator of the inflammatory process than the erythrocyte sedimantation rate (ESR), which may also be influenced by physiological changes not associated with an inflammatory process. Current quantitation methods including nephelometry, latex agglutination, radial immunodiffusion have the general disadvantages accompany agglutination and precipitation techniques. http://www.creative-diagnostics.com/Human-CRP-ELISA-Kit-184819-497.htm