Antibody News

The end of March has proven to be a busy time for the Novus antibody lab. Seven new antibodies were launched, numerous antibody conjugations completed, and continuous quality control testing of new antibody lots.

Two of Novus' newly released products are c-Myc antibodies: clone 9E10 and clone 9E11. c-Myc is a transcription factor that is activated in a variety of tumor cells, and plays a critical role in cellular proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and cell cycle progression. It is also a commonly used epitope tag engineered onto the N- or C-terminus of a protein of interest so that the tagged protein can be analyzed and visualized using immunochemical methods. Clone 9E11 is made to a synthetic peptide (AEEQKLISEEDL) conjugated to KLH, and is also available conjugated to...

We at Novus Biologicals are constantly creating new stem cell lines for a variety of bioassays – they are an essential part of our antibody catalog. Although stem cells are derived from many types of tissue, both adult and human, there is much controversy over their use.

The embryonic stem cells we supply are derived from animal, not human embryos. They are fertilized in vitro, and harvested as blastocysts, which are a hollow balls of cells that are a few days old. From these, we remove the blastocoels – the embryonic component. This is cultured in the lab.

Embryonic stem cell culture is quite inefficient, and so subculturing techniques are used. Once a cell line has become established, millions of ESCs can be yielded, often for years. This provides continuity and traceability. Once ESCs have been cultured for six months without differentiation, they are termed pluripotent and have formed an embryonic stem cell line.

Stem...

The CD44 family comprises a number of immunologically similar glycoproteins, which are expressed on the membranes of endothelial, mesenchymal, leukocyte and hepatocyte cells. The CD44 family has a number of functions. CD44 antibody assays have shown some that some isoforms play a role in abnormal gene splicing in human cells. Understanding this splicing mechanism is the key to many cancer research programs, hence we at Novus Biologicals have a broad range of conjugated and non-conjugated CD44 antibodies in the cancer section of our antibody catalog.

In immunobiology, CD44 is a valuable marker for memory cells, since B-cell and T-cell activation in the immune response leads to high expression of CD44. The protein is bound to hyaluronic acid in the extracellular matrix. When an antigen triggers the immune response and activates the T-helper cells, CD44 activity...

We at Novus Biologicals have a large number of products in our antibody database which are used for metabolic research. A new Adropin antibody is a recent addition, and is used in obesity research. Although not life-threatening in its own right, obesity – as we all know - can lead to a host of more serious illnesses including heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

The role of adropin is to regulate lipid metabolism and control glucose homeostasis. It is encoded by the ENHO (Energy Homeostasis Associated) gene, and is found in the liver and brain. Studies have shown the protein levels rise in response to the intake of fatty foods, and fall during fasting. This makes adropin one of the first proteins proven to react directly to dietary fat intake.

The Novus Product Development Team is excited to announce the launch of a new antibody target not currently available by any other antibody suppliers. The two new antibodies, a human TMEM97 antibody (NBP1-30436) and mouse TMEM97 antibody (NBP1-30437) are of particular interest as TMEM97 is implicated in several cancers, including breast, pancreatic, colorectal and ovarian cancers. In an article published in Cell Metabolism this past July, TMEM97 was also identified as one of 20 genes that are functional regulators of cellular cholesterol homeostasis. Novus' new human TMEM97 antibody has been successfully tested in both Western blot and immunocytochemistry. The mouse TMEM97 antibody is also useful for Western blot...

MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) antibodies are widely used in cellular research to study these processes, in both healthy and cancerous cells. For example, p38 is a pro-apoptotic factor, and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) regulates cellular longevity and stress resistance. Together they form the JNK/p38 signaling pathway, which is controlled by at least five MAPK cascades.

ASK1, also known as MAPKKK5 and MEKK5, is an apoptosis-regulating kinase which phosphorylates and stabilizes the Daxx protein. The two regulate each other via a positive feedback loop, i.e. higher Daxx levels lead to greater production of ASK1. ASK1 regulates cellular stress, for example that following activation of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα). It is necessary for the sustained activation of JNK.

It has been shown that cancer treatment with TNFα leads to ASK1 activation and accumulation of Daxx. The p53 transcription factor is associated with...

The antibody lab technicians here at Novus Biologicals are constantly busy conducting purifications, conjugations and QC analysis in order to maintain our antibody catalog of over 100,000 products. Just this past week, the lab team conjugated numerous antibodies and tested several newly purified antibody lots.

A few recent examples of antibody conjugations include conjugating the rabbit polyclonal anti-PINK1 antibody (catalog number NB100-493) and the mouse monoclonal anti-HSD3B1 antibody (clone FDO66Q) (catalog number NB110-78644) to HRP. Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) is the most commonly used enzyme label for antibodies. Its stability, small size...

Since DNA-damage can lead to the development of tumours, these antibodies are widely used in cancer studies. Cyclin dependent kinases (CDKs), which interact with regulatory cyclins, are essential to the progression of the cell cycle. However, tumours can develop if CDK/cyclin disruption leads to unregulated cell reproduction. Therefore these two proteins are carefully regulated.

p16INK4A is one of several proteins in the INK family which performs this function. It forms part of the pRb (p16-pRb-cyclin D1) pathway. Detailed antibody studies have revealed this pathway is the product of several protein interactions: pRb/E2F, p16INK4A and cyclin D/CDK. CDK inhibits pRb, a tumour suppressor which controls cell cycle progression by E2F inhibition. The E2F transcription factors promote cell replication.

It can be seen that the cell cycle is a complicated network of interactions involving numerous...

The Novus antibody lab has been very busy over the past two weeks. Not only has Novus marketed four new antibodies this past week, but the laboratory technicians have purified numerous antibodies, tested new antibody lots in Western blot as a part of Novus' stringent QC analysis process, as well as custom conjugating various antibodies.

One of Novus' newly released antibodies, a rabbit polyclonal anti-CLOCK antibody (catalog number NBP1-30326), is perfectly suited for the study of circadian rhythm. The CLOCK protein, also known as KAT13D, belongs to the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) family of transcription factors. It is a major protein of interest in the study of circadian rhythm as polymorphisms within the...

In the body, plasma B-cells produce large numbers of antibodies specific to foreign proteins. In the 1970s, studies into multiple myeloma (a B-cell cancer) revealed these plasma cells produced an antibody specific to one protein. This led to development of other antigen-specific antibodies.

In 1975 Kohler, Milstein et al produced the first monoclonal antibodies from a myeloma cell-line that had lost the ability to create immunoglobulins. These cells were fused with healthy antibody-secreting plasma spleen cells, producing a cell-line specific to one target area of the antigen – the first monoclonal antibodies. In 1988 Winter et al improved monoclonal techniques to make them suitable for human therapy use. At this time, the definitive work “...

Tumour Necrosis Factor Receptor 2 (TNFR2) exists as both a cytoplasmic and transmembrane glycoprotein. Together with TNFR1, it has been shown to stimulate T lymphocyte activity via TNFα action. The TNF signalling pathways are complex, and mutation or disruption of the proteins at any stage can cause oncogenesis. Therefore TNF-related antibodies are widely used in immunoassays for cancer research.

TNF receptor proteins activate the TRAF2 signal transduction protein at the T2bs-N binding site at their cytoplasmic domain, stimulating NF kappa B and JNK activation. However, TNFR2 has been shown to be a poor signalling pathway activator, despite having a high affinity for TRAF2.

Phosphospecific antibodies, such as our c-Fos, FANCD and Survivin (phos) antibody, target the phosphorylation sites of specific proteins. We at Novus Biologicals have many hundreds of phosphor-Abs, and are constantly expanding our antibody database. Phosphospecific Abs allows analysis of key targets in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes etc. They play an important role in the understanding of signal transduction sites, and provide valuable insight into normal cellular function.

The phosphoantibodies we supply at Novus Biologicals are affinity purified mono or polyclonals, specific for target proteins phosphorylated onto amino acid residues – typically serine, threonine or tyrosine. For example, our Survivin [phospho Thr34] antibody is specific for Survivin that has been...