Serum (blood) toxic response. Blood is centrifuged to remove cellular components. Anti-coagulated blood yields plasma containing fibrinogen and clotting factors. Coagulated blood (clotted blood) yields serum without fibrinogen, although some clotting factors remain. Serum is an essential factor for the self-renewal of embryonic stem cells in combination with the cytokine leukemia inhibitory factor. The serum of convalescent patients successfully recovering (or already recovered) from an infectious disease can be used as a biopharmaceutical in the treatment of other people with that disease, because the antibodies generated by the successful recovery are potent fighters of the pathogen. Such "convalescent serum" (antiserum) is a
Mucus improve the odds of pregnancy. It is also proposed as a method to avoid pregnancy. Mucus is able to absorb water or dehydrate through pH variations. The swelling capacity of mucus stems from the bottlebrush structure of mucin within which hydrophilic segments provide a large surface area for water absorption. Moreover, the tunability of swelling effect is controlled by polyelectrolyte effect. Polymers with charged molecules are called polyelectrolytes. Mucins, a kind of polyelectrolyte proteoglycans, are the main component of mucus, which provides the polyelectrolyte effect in mucus. The process of inducing this effect comprises two steps: attraction of counter-ions and