targeted-toxins

Lujan HL, Palani G, Zhang L, Dicarlo SE (2010) Targeted ablation of cardiac sympathetic neurons reduces the susceptibility to ischemia-induced sustained ventricular tachycardia in conscious rats. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 298:H1330-H1339. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00955.2009

Summary: It has been shown that reduction of cardiac sympathetic activity protects against ventricular tachy-arrhythmias, which are the leading cause of death in industrially developed countries. Rats received 10 µg injections of CTB-SAP (Cat. #IT-14) into each stellate ganglia. Using comparison of ventricular tachycardia onset times after coronary artery occlusion it was found that lesioned rats were less susceptible to tachycardia events.

Related Products: CTB-SAP (Cat. #IT-14)

Read the featured article in Targeting Trends.

Zipancic I, Calcagnotto ME, Piquer-Gil M, Mello LE, Alvarez-Dolado M (2010) Transplant of GABAergic precursors restores hippocampal inhibitory function in a mouse model of seizure susceptibility. Cell Transplant 19(5):549-564. doi: 10.3727/096368910X491383

Summary: Although medial ganglionic eminence-derived cells can be grafted into the neonatal brain and become functionally mature GABAergic neurons it is not clear whether the grafted cells can rescue loss of function. The authors injected mice with 1.6-2.0 ng of SSP-SAP (Cat. #IT-11) into the anterior and posterior hippocampus to eliminate GABAergic interneurons. Neuron function in mice receiving the grafts returned to near normal.

Related Products: SSP-SAP (Cat. #IT-11)

Ng TB, Wong JH, Wang H (2010) Recent progress in research on ribosome inactivating proteins. Curr Protein Pept Sci 11(1):37-53. doi: 10.2174/138920310790274662

Summary: This review discusses recent literature on ribosome inactivating proteins including the use of saporin-based conjugates in neuroscience and cancer research. Brief descriptions of research done using 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01), OX7-SAP (Cat. #IT-02), dermorphin-SAP (Cat. #IT-12), anti-SERT-SAP (Cat. #IT-23), SSP-SAP (Cat. #IT-11), anti-DBH-SAP (Cat. #IT-03), CTB-SAP (Cat. #IT-14), and other conjugates are provided along with basic information about ribosome inactivating proteins.

Related Products: 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01), OX7-SAP (Cat. #IT-02), Dermorphin-SAP / MOR-SAP (Cat. #IT-12), Anti-SERT-SAP (Cat. #IT-23), SSP-SAP (Cat. #IT-11), Anti-DBH-SAP (Cat. #IT-03), CTB-SAP (Cat. #IT-14)

Mendoza J, Pevet P, Felder-Schmittbuhl MP, Bailly Y, Challet E (2010) The cerebellum harbors a circadian oscillator involved in food anticipation. J Neurosci 30:1894-1904. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5855-09.2010

Summary: The authors report on a circadian oscillator in the cerebellum that is sensitive to feeding cues. Mice received intracerebroventricular injections of 0.12, 0.25, or 0.50 µg of OX7-SAP (Cat. #IT-02). Lesioned animals displayed attenuated food-anticipatory activity, and less locomotor activity after fasting, indicating that Purkinje cells in the cerebellum are involved in the circadian connection to feeding.

Related Products: OX7-SAP (Cat. #IT-02)

Akasaka E, Watanabe S, Himaki T, Ohtsuka M, Yoshida M, Miyoshi K, Sato M (2010) Enrichment of xenograft-competent genetically modified pig cells using a targeted toxin, isolectin BS-I-B4 conjugate. Xenotransplantation 17:81-89. doi: 10.1111/j.1399-3089.2010.00568.x

Summary: Genetically modified pigs lacking the gala1-3gal epitope may be suitable for production of organs that could be transplanted to humans. The ability to select for a homozygous population of donor somatic cells would accelerate the process of generating these animals, which would otherwise take approximately 2 years. The authors incubated a heterozygous population of 107 porcine embryonic fibroblasts with 1.6 µg of IB4-SAP (Cat. #IT-10). Even after 6 months the treated cells were negative for the agal epitope.

Related Products: IB4-SAP (Cat. #IT-10)

Q: We have a question about two 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01) lots. According to your data sheet there is an approximate 4-fold difference in ED50 between your new lot and old lot. We also observed a clear difference in behavior between animals dosed with the new batch and the old one. It is thus obvious that the new lot needs to be diluted to achieve the same results, however, we are uncertain if this can be calculated just based on the ED50 values. Do you have any experience about dose-responses with the different lots in terms of size of lesion?

A: We don’t have an exact correlation between in vitro and in vivo activity, unfortunately. We state on the data sheet to check a new batch on a small number of animals.

“There may be lot-to-lot variation in material; working dilutions must be determined by end user. If this is a new lot, you must assess the proper working dilution before beginning a full experimental protocol.”

Related: Targeted Toxins

Li AJ, Wang Q, Dinh TT, Ritter S (2010) Featured Article: Deletion of NPY/AGRP and POMC neurons in the arcuate nucleus by leptin-saporin produces hyperphagia, obesity and changes in diurnal feeding patterns in rats. Targeting Trends 11(1)

Related Products: Leptin-SAP (Cat. #IT-47), Blank-SAP (Cat. #IT-21)

Read the featured article in Targeting Trends.

See Also:

• Li A-J et al. Leptin-saporin injection into the arcuate nucleus lesions NPY/AGRP and POMC neurons and produces hyperphagia, obesity and changes in diurnal feeding patterns in rats. Neuroscience 2009 Abstracts 374.5/EE116, 2009. Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, IL

Thomsen MS, Hay-Schmidt A, Hansen HH, Mikkelsen JD (2010) Distinct neural pathways mediate alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor-dependent activation of the forebrain. Cereb Cortex 20(9):2092-2102. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhp283

Summary: a7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonists are potential treatments for some aspect of schizophrenia. The authors examine whether cholinergic neurons in the horizontal limb of the diagonal band of Broca (HDB) are a target for this treatment. Rats received 300 ng injections of 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01) into the HDB. The results demonstrate that cholinergic neurons in the HDB are essential for a7 nAChR agonist activation of the medial prefrontal cortex.

Related Products: 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01)

Gibbs RB (2010) Estrogen therapy and cognition: a review of the cholinergic hypothesis. Endocr Rev 31(2):224-253. doi: 10.1210/er.2009-0036

Summary: This review discusses estrogen therapy for use in postmenopausal women. In this context the issues revolve around benefits vs. harm of such therapy on the brain and cognitive impairment associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Use of 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01) to investigate this paradigm is described.

Related Products: 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01)

Robertson RT, Baratta J, Yu J, LaFerla FM (2009) Amyloid-beta expression in retrosplenial cortex of triple transgenic mice: relationship to cholinergic axonal afferents from medial septum. Neuroscience 164:1334-1346. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2009.09.024

Summary: In this work the authors developed a model to examine the relationship between afferent projections and the formation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) deposits. Mice received 1.86 µg unilateral injections of 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01) into the lateral ventricle. Lesioned animals had persistent Aβ immunoreactivity in layer III of the granular division of retrosplenial cortex (RSg). This data indicates that septal cholinergic axonal projections transport Aβ or amyloid precursor protein to layer III of the RSg.

Related Products: 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01), mu p75-SAP (Cat. #IT-16)