L-Carnitine Assay Kit

L-Carnitine is a naturally occurring compound biosynthesized from lysine and methionine that is essential for cellular energy metabolism, with the highest concentrations in skeletal and cardiac muscle. Its primary function is facilitating the transport of long-chain fatty acids into the mitochondrial matrix for β-oxidation via the carnitine shuttle. Beyond transport, L-carnitine serves a critical acyl-group buffering function by reversibly forming acylcarnitines of varying chain lengths, which maintains free CoA availability for essential metabolic reactions, enables export of excess or toxic acyl intermediates, and generates metabolite signatures that reflect the balance between substrate supply, oxidative capacity, and metabolic bottlenecks. Carnitine metabolism is a central hub connecting fatty acid oxidation, mitochondrial function, branched‑chain amino acid catabolism, and cellular energy homeostasis across physiological and disease states.

Suitable for the determination of L-Carnitine in urine, serum, plasma, cell lysates, tissue lysates and food products (e.g. milk).

In this assay, a multistep reaction produces H₂O₂ which reacts with a specific dye to form a pink colored product. The optical density at 570 nm or fluorescence intensity at λex/em = 530/585 nm is directly proportional to the L‑Carnitine concentration in the sample.

Detection range:

Colorimetric assay 12 ‑ 1000 µM

Fluorometric assay 1 ‑ 100 µM