Establishment of an ELISA for the Recognition of Procalcitonin Variants in Patients With Hyperprocalcitonemia.

Procalcitonin is a protein consisting of 116 amino-acids which can rapidly rise under inflammatory conditions and sepsis. More than 20 years ago it has been shown that dipeptidylpeptidase-4 (DPP-4) cleaves procalcitonin from the n-terminus, resulting in a truncated procalcitonin-variant which consists of 114 aminoacids. Within our workgroup we found that the truncated procalcitonin-variant had deleterious effects on vascular integrity during sepsis in mice. However, it is unknown if this applies also in humans. By using an ELISA-assay we want to examine the ratio between native and truncated human procalcitonin during diseases accompanied with hyperprocalcitoninemia and correlate the results with clinical data.

Inclusion Criteria:Age >18Patients with diagnosis...Sepsis or,SIRS after cardiothoracic surgery or,adipositas or,granulomatosis with polyangiitis/microscopic polyangiitis or,pre-eclampsiahealthy control subjectswritten informed consentExclusion Criteria:participation in an interventional study trial within the last 3 monthsrelationship to study investigator