Development of an immunoassay kit for detecting the alteration of serum B cell activating factor in thermally injured mice.

B cell activating factor (BAFF), a member of the family of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) ligands, is essential for the development of peripheral mature, long lived B lymphocytes. Previous studies were almost related to the function or mechanism of BAFF protein and there is little report about BAFF expression in thermally injured animals. Here, we developed a special ELISA kit to study the change of BAFF expression in thermally injured mouse model. It was shown that BAFF expression changed in double-phase. Peripheral BAFF level dropped rapidly after thermal injury and at 24 h of scald it was only 1/4 compared with that of the control group, 24 h later it began to rise up slowly and then returned to the normal level comparable to the control at 120 h.