Biliverdin Reductase Assay Kit

Biliverdin Reductase Assay Kit contains all the reagents necessary for activity detection of biliverdin reductase. The formation of bilirubin from biliverdin is followed by a colorimetric reaction at 450 nm, in an NADPH dependent reaction, at pH 8.5 at 37 °C. The kit was tested on tissue extracts prepared from rat liver, brain, heart, spleen, lung, skeletal muscle, and kidney. It was also tested on HEK-293T, BAEC, HepG2, COS, Jurkat, Balb/3T3, CHO, and U937 cell lines.

Biliverdin reductase (BVR) catalyzes the transformation of the blue-green pigment biliverdin IX to the yellow-orange bile pigment, bilirubin IX. A major feature of this enzyme is that it is the only enzyme shown to have two distinct cofactor dependent pH optima. In the acidic range of pH 6.0-6.7, NADH is utilized; whereas, in the alkaline range of pH 8.5-8.7, NADPH is used. Biliverdin reductase is also known to contain a domain that acts as a serine/threonine/tyrosine kinase that belongs to the insulin receptor substrate family. Whereas, most tyrosine kinase activity is membrane bound, BVR is a soluble protein.