Antibody News

Integrins are transmembrane receptors composed of alpha and beta chains, where beta-integrins are mainly expressed in leukocytes. Leukocytes are white blood cells that act in the immune system to defend our body against foreign pathogens.  Integrins are known to interact with extracellular matrix molecules to initiate our inflammatory immune response, in addition to regulating cell adhesion, migration and proliferation.  Our innate immune response is composed of a number of cell types that work in a coordinated effort to identify and attack foreign particles through antigen production.  CD11b is expressed in macrophages, monocytes, dendritic cells and granulocytes – the main players of our immune response cell network.  While CD11b’s exact role in immunity is still debated, it has been established that CD11b both negative and positively regulates our immune response, often times via a TLR ligand.  The following research articles use a...

Today in breast cancer research, scientists are focused on determining the cause, risk, diagnostic testing options and treatment of this devastating disease.  Of particular interest is identification of potential therapeutic targets that are known to contribute to the progression of breast cancer in order to develop treatments against these specific genes or proteins.  This article review summarizes research completed by AlHossiny et al regarding the role of Ly6E/K signaling and TGF-beta is the progression of cancer, immune escape and subsequent drug resistance.  Initial work by this group shed light on the role of mouse Ly6A in the regulation of TGF-beta, PTEN and the ERK/AKT signaling pathways to develop resistance to radiation and promote metastatic behavior of mammary tumors.  Furthermore, heightened levels...

Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E binding protein 1, or 4EBP1, is an mRNA translational repressor protein that negatively regulates eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E, or EIF4E.  EIF4E is a protein that forms a complex necessary to block the 5’ ends of mRNA with a 7-methyl-guanosine five-prime cap structure, which is important for normal translation of mRNA.  Specifically, the EIF4E complex recruits 40s ribosome subunits to scan mRNA in order to regulate protein synthesis.  When EIF4E is bound to 4EBP1, it is held in an inactive state, however phosphorylation of 4EBP1 will cause its release.  While 4EBP1 has broad implications in translational research, the following articles hone in on how a 4EBP1 antibody plays a role in the regulation of skeletal muscle protein synthesis.

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HIF-2 alpha, also known as hypoxia-inducible factor 2, endothelial PAS domain protein-1, and member of PAS superfamily 2 is part of the HIF family of proteins.  The HIF family is composed of HIF-1, HIF-2 and HIF-3, where HIF-2 is a dimeric protein that consists of an alpha and beta subunit.HIF-2 alphais activated in the presence of oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia, via prolyl hydroxylase-domain enzymes (PHDs) that facilitate its degradation.  HIF-2 alphais expressed in endothelial and intestinal cells, as well as in tumor tissue of a variety of prominent cancers, and is not typically detected in normoxic conditions.  Given the fact that loss of HIF-1 alpha was a notable hallmark of renal cell carcinoma, HIF-2 alpha and the hypoxia mediated gene therapy has been an area of interest in...

The CiteAb Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes and promotes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the research antibody industry over a sustained period of time.

We're delighted to announce that Karen Padgett, founder of Novus Biologicals, has been recognized for her lifetime achievement in the research antibody industry. Karen is currently the VP of the Antibody Business Unit (representing both Novus and R&D Systems) and Digital Marketing at Bio-Techne. Karen has earned her place as a global leader in the research antibody industry, through her unfailing commitment, drive and positivity over the last two decades, and without ever compromising the integrity that defines her company as an industry leader.

Over 20 years of...

p53, the protein product of the tp53 gene, is one of the most widely studied tumor suppressor proteins in cancer research.  p53 is unique in that it demonstrates both tumor suppressive and tumor progressive properties depending on whether it is functional or mutated.  The most common mutation in the p53 protein that leads to lack of tumor suppression activity is a missense mutation, however frameshift or nonsense mutations are also common.  In fact, mutant p53 has exhibited dominant negative inhibition of the wild type version of the protein, demonstrating the fact that the p53 pathway has both positive and negative feedback loops.  The p53 pathway is a large signal transduction pathway that affects DNA replication and division, apoptosis, cellular senescence and is composed of at least seven negative feedback loops and three positive feedback loops.  Although p53's major influence is in cancer, the following articles describe how a...

Sordaria macrospora is a filamentous fungus that serves as very useful system for scientific research due to a short life cycle and easy manipulation.  Just like any other model organism, it is important to have an effective loading control to validate experiments in the Sordaria macrospora.  In addition, the growth and morphogenesis of filamentous fungi is dependent on actin organization.  Actin is a very abundant protein across biological species and can transition between monomeric and filamentous states.  Actin has an alpha and beta isoform, both of which share nearly 98% percent sequence homology with total actin.  Actin recruits a variety of actin regulators in order to carry out many cellular functions, including cell division, cell motility, cell growth and differentiation, muscle contraction and more.  The following articles use an actin antibody as a loading control in the study of...