We release a novel mouse monoclonal antibody specific for microtubule associated protein 2D (MAP2D), MCA-2C4. This was raised against the purified recombinant human MAP2D, an embryonic form of this major CNS molecule. Our experiments show that this antibody also binds to MAP2C, the smallest product from the MAP2 gene. The antibody therefore will stain all forms of MAP2, not just the high molecular weight mature forms which are recognized by antibodies to the MAP2 “projection domain”, such as our MCA-4H5 and MCA-5H11. The antibody also works very well on aldehyde fixed sections of brain tissue. We also add a bunch of new pure recombinant proteins to our growing collection. The first is a purified recombinant form of a green fluorescent protein (GFP), catalog Prot-r-aceGFP. GFP was originally isolated from a jellyfish and it and its variants have become widely used as a tracer in many experimental paradigms. We also add a chicken polyclonal antibody raised against this GFP preparation, CPCA-GFP, which can be used to verify the size of GFP fusion proteins on western blots and to amplify the GFP signal in transgenic, tranfected and transduced tissues and cells. Another fluorescent protein is the intriguing EosFP protein, Prot-r-EosFP,  another green fluorescent protein distantly related to GFP but originally isolated from a coral. This has the interesting property of changing to a red fluorescent protein following irradiation with blue or UV light. This property makes it very useful for pulse chase type experiments in live cells. Another GFP, this time from a different coral is FP506, Prot-r-FP506. These three proteins complement our recombinant mCherry, Prot-r-mCherry preparation. Antibodies to all of these proteins are either in preparation or already available. Our products are now listed on the CiteAb site so you can rapidly find peer reviewed publications which make use of our products. This only works if the antibody was purchased from us directly, many of our antibodies have very large numbers of citations but were purchased through our many OEM partners and so appear on their CiteAb pages and not ours. Also check out this JNNP article “Are neurofilaments heading to the ALS clinic?”, discussing the potential utillity of the measurement of blood and CSF levels of neurofilament proteins as diagnostics and outcome measures for ALS. This is an approach we pioneered in the EnCor lab and with our clinical and academic colleagues. We also provide a link to our founders blog, which will contain his rantings and ravings about a variety of topics, some scientific, some not. This can be accessed at GerryShawBlog. If you really want you can also get an RSS feed on this stuff here.

Our immunocytochemical images continue to be used in books, journals and news articles, usually without any attribution, since we did not bother to copyright or watermark any of them. Many have been sent freely to our OEM partners and in some cases to Wikipedia. Scroll down in this very recent high profile on line article entitled “An Inflammatory Theory of Brain Disease” to see one of our images. The article is an interesting PBS NOVA write up of some progress (and also lack thereof) in the search for effective therapies to treat human brain diseases. The image in the article is of our mixed neural cells grown in tissue culture stained with our microglial cell marker Coronin 1a in green and the neuronal marker α-internexin in red. This particular image was in fact provided to Wikipedia Commons for unfettered use as shown here.