Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is an abundant plasma protein in cows that is important for maintaining osmotic pressure in blood plasma for proper distribution of body fluids between intravascular compartments and body tissues. BSA is a common buffer component for immunoglobulin type assays due to good solubility characteristics for water, Ca2+, Na+, K+, fatty acids, hormones and bilirubin. BSA makes up about half of the protein in plasma and represents the most stable and soluble protein in the plasma. It is a suitable reagent for laboratories developing immunoassays, mostly due to its availability, solubility and the numerous functional groups present for coupling. The BSA component contains several lysines that are capable of reacting with conjugation sites of linkers, making it applicable as a carrier protein for antigenic compounds.
