Diabetes and Obesity
Obesity leads to adverse metabolic effects on blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and insulin resistance. The likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes and hypertension rises steeply with increasing body fatness. Confined to older adults for most of the 20th century, this disease now affects obese children even before puberty. Type 1 diabetes is "insulin-dependent diabetes." Type 2 diabetes is "insulin-resistant diabetes." Approximately 85% of people with diabetes are type 2, and of these, 90% are obese or overweight. Although type 1 diabetes is less common, it is a potentially devastating disorder affecting both children and adults. Diabetes & obesity are major contributors to various other chronic diseases such as coronary artery diseases, myocardial infarction, hypertension, dyslipidemia and a number of other complicated disorders.
Numerous adipose cytokines and growth factors lead to the “inflammatory syndrome” in diabetes and metabolic diseases. Adipose tissue also releases numerous immunmodulatory factors (cytokines, hormones etc) which are also involved in visceral obesity. The chronic low grade inflammatory state leads to insulin resistance amongst other effects. BioVision's cytokines, growth factors and hormones portfolio is enriched by the presence of in-demand drug targets like adiponectins, resistins,leptins, visfatins etc. of human, mouse and rat origins, which are very well complimented by the assay kits, antibodies, inhibitors and inducers for the same targets from the other sub-portfolios.

Cathepsins
Cathepsins are proteases found in all animals as well as other organisms. There are approximately a dozen members in this family, distinguished by structure, catalytic mechanism, and their protein targets.
The cysteine protease class comprises of cathepsins B, L, H, K, S, and O. The aspartyl protease class is composed of cathepsins D and E. Most of the members become activated at the low pH found in lysosomes. There are, however, exceptions such as cathepsin K, which works extracellularly after secretion by osteoclasts in bone resorption. Cathepsins have a vital role in mammalian cellular turnover, e.g. bone resorption. Cysteine cathepsins are highly upregulated in a wide variety of cancers. In addition, cathepsins are also implicated in numerous other diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, arthritis, COPD, chronic periodontitis, pancreatitis, polycystic kidney disease and several ocular diseases including keratoconus, retinal detachment, AMD, glaucoma etc. BioVision is proud to offer numerous assay kits, active recombinant enzymes/proteins, antibodies, blocking peptides and inhibitors for research in these and additional areas related to cathepsins.

Cholesterol
Recent studies are suggesting towards the efflux capacity of HDL (anti-atherosclerosis) as a major player rather than just its high levels. Unfortunately, testing HDL functionality is an expensive, time-consuming process that uses radiolabeled cholesterol. Scientists at BioVision have come up with the solution, industry's first Cholesterol Efflux Assay Kit.
BioVision’s Cholesterol Efflux Assay is a high-throughput screening assay for measuring cholesterol efflux in cells using fluorescently-labeled cholesterol. This assay provides a safe, sensitive, and reproducible method for measuring cholesterol efflux.

• Simple, sensitive, & reproducible method
• Non-radioactive and HTS
• Measures cholesterol efflux fluorometrically at Ex/Em = 482/515 nm
• Ideal for screening serum samples or lipoproteins (isolated or recombinant)
• Added advantage for screening small molecules for their effect on cholesterol efflux (drug discovery)



PPAR and EGF Signalling Pathways
Cells are in constant communication with each other and with the surrounding environment. This cellular discourse occurs through both electrical and chemical signals. In multicellular organisms, growth factors, hormones, neurotransmitters, and extracellular matrix components are some of the many types of chemical signals cells use. Cell signaling pathways orchestrate these interactions. They control the life history of cells, right from their birth during the process of cell proliferation, their differentiation into specific cell types to carry out different cell functions, and finally till their death through processes such as apoptosis.
At any one time, a cell is receiving and responding to numerous signals, and multiple signaling pathways are operating in its cytoplasm. Through this network of signaling pathways, the cell is constantly integrating all the information it receives from its external environment. These signaling pathways could be G-Protein coupled pathways, second messenger coupled pathways or Kinase cascades. Some of the most important signaling pathways in the cells include adipokine signaling, AMPK, Insulin and Leptin signaling, EGFR signaling, GSK-3/Wnt signaling, Hedgehog signaling, JAK/STAT signaling, JNK/SAPK Signaling, MAP Kinase Pathway, NF-κB signaling, PI3K/Akt/mTOR Signaling, PPAR Signaling, TGF-β Signaling, TLR signaling and Ubiquitin proteasome pathway.
Biovision has a very comprehensive ensemble of products catering to the various signaling pathways like EGFR and PPAR. These products include assay kits, recombinant proteins, antibodies, biochemicals, inhibitors, activators, agonists, antagonists and much more to serve your complete signaling pathways research needs.



Cell Proliferation & Cytotoxicity
Cell proliferation rates or viability levels are good indicators of cell health. Proliferation or viability analysis is crucial for cell growth and differentiation studies, and are often coupled with metabolism analysis. Proliferation is also a convenient measure of population dynamics in studies of cytokines or growth factors, or in bioprocess optimization work.
These assays in oncological settings are also used to evaluate both compound toxicity and inhibition of tumor cell growth during drug development. Cell viability in a particular experiment can depend on diverse criteria ranging from redox potential of the cell population, the ATP/ADP levels, the integrity of cell membranes, to the activity of cellular enzymes such as LDH and esterases. Therefore, biomarkers that can be quantified include ATP, NADH, Caspases, LDH, and live- and dead-cell proteases.

Cell viability/cytotoxicity assays can be classified into 4 types:
1) Functional assays, e.g., ATP levels.
2) Cytology / membrane leakage assays, e.g., LDH assays.
3) Mitochondrial assays, e.g., assays using Resazurin.
4) Genomic/proteomic assays

BioVision offers a diverse selection of assays and antibodies for the analysis of cell viability and vitality. In addition to the above mentioned products, they also offer live dead cell staining and senescence detection kits. All these products have been validated on multiple instrument platforms including microscopy, flow cytometry, microplate reader, and /or high content screening. These reliable, sensitive and easy-to-use kits can analyze cell growth regulation in response to growth factors, cytokines, mitogens, nutrients, chemicals, and many more conditions/reagents.