Lab Testing

Product Description

**Note: All laboratory testing requires an authorizing physician. DHA Laboratory offers a patient direct program that partners you with an authorizing physician. If you have any additional questions regarding the availability of testing, please contact our laboratory by telephone or email.**

TGF-β is a multifunctional set of peptides that controls proliferation, differentiation, and other functions in many cell types. TGF-β acts synergistically with TGFA in inducing transformation. It also acts as a negative autocrine growth factor. Dysregulation of TGF-β activation and signaling may result in apoptosis. Many cells synthesize TGF-β and almost all of them have specific receptors for this peptide. TGF-β1, TGF-β2, and TGF-β3 all function through the same receptor signaling systems.^[7]

TGF-β1 was first identified in human platelets as a protein with a molecular mass of 25 kilodaltons with a potential role in wound healing.^[8] It was later characterized as a large protein precursor (containing 390 amino acids) that was proteolytically processed to produce a mature peptide of 112 amino acids.^[9]

TGF-β1 plays an important role in controlling the immune system and shows different activities on different types of cell, or cells at different developmental stages. Most immune cells (or leukocytes) secrete TGF-β1.^[10]

This test was developed and its performance characteristics were determined by Viracor-IBT Laboratories.