We add new high quality antibodies to the extreme C-terminal peptide of neurofilament NF-L, a rabbit polyclonal RPCA-NF-L-ct. This antibody was made against the extreme C-terminal peptide of rat NF-L coupled to KLH, so the epitopic region is known. This rabbit antibody binds to all mammalian NF-L molecules tested to date. After we epitope mapped our monoclonal antibodies to FOX3/NeuN we found that all of them, and also antibodies made by other companies including the original NeuN monoclonal antibody A66, bind to the same proline rich peptide at the N-terminus of the molecule (see here). We therefore made a new version of our rabbit FOX3 antibody, RPCA-FOX3, raised against this N-terminal peptide. This antibody works well for cell staining and has the advantage over other polyclonal antibodies that the exact epitopic region is known. The peptide used is 100% conserved in most mammalian and avian species so the antibody will have wide utility. Finally we release a new epitope mapped mouse monoclonal antibody to mCherry, MCA-5A6. For epitope information on this antibody see here.

We continue with our program of epitope mapping our most widely used mouse monoclonal antibodies. We now add epitope information to the data sheet for our widely used monoclonal antibody to ubiquitin, MCA-Ubi-1. The epitope for this antibody maps to a peptide which is conserved in the ubiquitin molecule expressed in every important model organism from macaque to yeast, see here. We also mapped the epitopes for our excellent HSP60 MCA-1C7 and myelin basic protein MCA-7G7 antibodies and we provide more information about another myelin basic protein monoclonal with an epitope distinct from MCA-7G7, MCA-7D2. We also mapped the epitopes for our two mouse monoclonal antibodies to GFP, MCA-1F1 and MCA-3B11, to the N-terminus of the molecule. We also show that both antibodies recognize the two most widely used GFP proteins, AcGFP and eGFP. Finally we epitope mapped our two MAP tau mouse monoclonal antibodies, MCA-2E9. and MCA-5B10, to two distinct epitopes towards the C-terminus of human MAP tau molecules. The epitopes are expressed in all forms of tau and so both antibodies will recognize all tau isoforms on western blots and in IHC. The amino acid sequences including the epitopes are extremely conserved so the two antibodies will be usable in studies of essentially all mammals and many other vertebrates.

We release yet more antibodies! While we were upgrading our website quite a backlog built up, so we are releasing an unusual number of new reagents this month. We previously generated a rabbit polyclonal antibody to adenylate cyclase III (ACIII), RPCA-ACIII, which is an excellent marker of neuronal cilia in human and rodent cells and tissues. We now release two new reagents which are also good neuronal cilia markers, specifically mouse monoclonal antibody to ACIII MCA-1A12 and chicken polyclonal antibody to ACIII CPCA-ACIII. These were made against the same ACIII peptide as our original rabbit antibody, which has become widely used, and have very similar properties and so will complement the rabbit antibody. We improved our western blotting and immunofluorescence data for our antibody to the product of the Ewing’s sarcoma breakpoint 1 EWSR1 gene, the EWS protein, antibody MCA-5H7. We also have additional data for our mouse monoclonals to methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MeCP2), MCA-4F11 and MCA-5H12. There is a new antibody to the RNA binding protein FOX2, CPCA-FOX2 made in chicken, which specifically binds the nuclei of neurons many of which are not recognized by antibodies to NeuN, now known to correspond to a close relative of FOX2, namely FOX3. There is also a new rabbit polyclonal antibody to the serotonin transporter RPCA-SERT, a useful marker of serotinergic neurons and their thin beaded processes. A new rabbit polyclonal antibody to fibrillarin RPCA-Fib, an excellent marker of nucleoli to complement our widely used mouse and chicken antibodies to the same protein. Also new antibodies to myristoylated alanine rich C-kinase substrate (MARCKS), a chicken polyclonal CPCA-MARCKS and a mouse monoclonal MCA-5F9.

We release a new antibody to MAP2A/B made in goat, useful for identifying neurons and their dendrites in cell culture and sectioned material, GPCA-MAP2. Since this is made in goat it can be used on transgenic mice along with one or other of our rabbit or chicken antibodies for double or triple labeling. We also release a chicken polyclonal antibody to tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) CPCA-TH, which can be used to identify TH positive/chatecholaminergic neurons and processes in cell culture and sectioned material.

Science Daily is one of several on line journals which makes use of many of our images to illustrate their articles. For recent examples see one of our HeLa cell images, our astrocyte image here and here. Other frequent users of our images are Neuroscience News, Science News. Our current policy is to make our images freely available for any purpose, so contact us if you want to use a particular image you have seen on our web site, we have higher resolution versions of most of our images available.