ArticleFrontiers in endocrinology2018
Widely Used Commercial ELISA Does Not Detect Precursor of Haptoglobin2, but Recognizes Properdin as a Potential Second Member of the Zonulin Family.
Article in Frontiers in endocrinology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 140 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sports Dietitians Australia and Ultra Sports Science Foundation Joint Position Statement: A Practitioner Guide to the Prevention and Management of Exercise-Associated Gastrointestinal Perturbations and Symptoms.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Guideline
- Effect of prebiotics, probiotics, and synbiotics on gastrointestinal outcomes in healthy adults and active adults at rest and in response to exercise-A systematic literature review.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- The Effect of a Low-FODMAP Diet on Quality of Life, Severity of Symptoms and Leaky Gut in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.Nutrients · 2026Trial
- Probiotic Formulation for Patients With Bipolar or Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder: A Double-Blind, Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Trial
- Carrageenan and insulin resistance in humans: a randomised double-blind cross-over trial.BMC medicine · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Effect of a Multistrain Probiotic on Leaky Gut in Patients with Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Pilot Study.Digestive diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Trial
- Higher bacterial DNAemia can affect the impact of a polyphenol-rich dietary pattern on biomarkers of intestinal permeability and cardiovascular risk in older subjects.European journal of nutrition · 2022Trial
- Impact of Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy on Gut Permeability in Morbidly Obese Subjects.Obesity surgery · 2019Trial
- Article
- Shift Work, Circadian Disruption, and Immune Dysregulation: Molecular Links to Gastrointestinal Diseases and Occupational Health Implications.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Mesenteric Panniculitis and the Gut-Mesentery-Metabolic Axis: A Hypothesis-Generating Narrative Review.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Interpreting Biomarker Discordance in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Beyond Fecal Calprotectin and C-Reactive Protein.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Early-Life Biomarkers in Food Allergy Development: A Systematic Review of Immunological and Intestinal Pathways.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Emerging Biomarkers in Pediatric Food Allergy: From Mechanistic Endotyping to Precision Diagnosis and Therapeutic Monitoring.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Article
- Natural Bioactive Compounds Targeting Gut Barrier Integrity and Metabolic Endotoxemia in Cardiometabolic Disease: Mechanistic Insights and Translational Perspectives.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Unraveling the Role of Zonulin in Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Multicenter Study.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Intermittent Fasting andNutrients · 2026Article
- Maternal weight gain and intestinal permeability marker zonulin in late pregnancy: implications for nutritional and metabolic health.BMC nutrition · 2026Article
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThere is increasing evidence for the role of impaired intestinal permeability in obesity and associated metabolic diseases. Zonulin is an established serum marker for intestinal permeability and identical to pre-haptoglobin2. Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship between circulating zonulin and metabolic traits related to obesity.
methodsSerum zonulin was measured by using a widely used commercial ELISA kit in 376 subjects from the metabolically well-characterized cohort of Sorbs from Germany. In addition, haptoglobin genotype was determined in DNA samples from all study subjects.
resultsAs zonulin concentrations did not correlate to the haptoglobin genotypes, we investigated the specificity of the zonulin ELISA assay using antibody capture experiments, mass spectrometry, and Western blot analysis. Using serum samples that gave the highest or lowest ELISA signals, we detected several proteins that are likely to be captured by the antibody in the present kit. However, none of these proteins corresponds to pre-haptoglobin2. We used increasing concentrations of recombinant pre-haptoglobin2 and complement C3 as one of the representative captured proteins and the ELISA kit did not detect either. Western blot analysis using both the polyclonal antibodies used in this kit and monoclonal antibodies rose against zonulin showed a similar protein recognition pattern but with different intensity of detection. The protein(s) measured using the ELISA kit was (were) significantly increased in patients with diabetes and obesity and correlated strongly with markers of the lipid and glucose metabolism. Combining mass spectrometry and Western blot analysis using the polyclonal antibodies used in the ELISA kit, we identified properdin as another member of the zonulin family.
conclusionOur study suggests that the zonulin ELISA does not recognize pre-haptoglobin2, rather structural (and possibly functional) analog proteins belonging to the mannose-associated serine protease family, with properdin being the most likely possible candidate.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.