In 1997, Melanopsin was discovered by Dr. Ignacio Provencio as a novel opsin in the melanophores (light-sensitive skin cells) of the African clawed frog.1  Provencio and colleagues then found in 2000 that melanopsin is also present in mouse retina, specifically in ganglion cells, and that it mediates non-visual photoreceptive tasks.2   The figure below illustrates the specificity

Cat. #IT-69 Nppb-SAP Meng, Qing-Tao and Liu, Xian-Yu and Liu, Xue-Ting and Barry, Devin M. and Jin, Hua and Yang, Qianyi and Sun, Yu and Wan, Li and Jin, Jin-Hua and Munanairi, Admire and Kim, Ray and Yin, Jun and Tao, Ailin and Chen, Zhou-Feng, Cross-Talk between Distinct Receptors Shapes Itch Behavior in the Spinal

Targeted Ablation of Distal Cerebrospinal Fluid-Contacting Nucleus Alleviates Renal Fibrosis in Chronic Kidney Disease.  Qiu M, Li J, Tan L, Zhang M, Zhou G, Zeng T, Li A.  Front Physiol. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2018.01640 CTB-SAP (Cat. #KIT-14) CTB-SAP causes ablation of any cell type expressing GM1, including preganglionic neurons, motoneurons, and astrocytes. Intrathecal injection of CTB-SAP results in

Two more publications this week using an ATS exclusive antibody: NGFR (mu p75) Antibody (Cat. #AB-N01) Nicotinamide Mononucleotide Adenylyltransferase 2 maintains neuronal structural integrity through the maintenance of Golgi structure. Pottorf T, Mann A, Fross S, Mansel C, & Vohra BPS. (2018). Neurochem Intl Objective:  investigated the link between NMNAT2 loss, Golgi fragmentation and axon

Two publications out this week using ATS antibodies: Anti-Melanopsin (Cat. #AB-N38) and Anti-Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 2 (mGluR2; Cat. #AB-N32) Sabbah S, Papendorp C, Koplas E, Beltoja M, Etebari C, Gunesch AN, Carrete L, Kim MT, Manoff G, Bhatia-Lin A, Zhao T, Schreck D, Dowling H, Briggman KL, Berson DM (2018) Synaptic circuits for irradiance coding

Conservation of Oncofetal Antigens on Human Embryonic Stem Cells Enables Discovery of Monoclonal Antibodies against Cancer. Tan HL, Yong C, Tan BZ, Fong WJ, Padmanabhan J, Chin A, Ding V, Lau A, Zheng L, Bi X, Yang Y, & Choo A. (2018). Scientific Reports, 8 (1):11608. This study used both Hum-ZAP (Cat. #IT-22) and Streptavidin-ZAP (Cat. #IT-27)

Screening Aptamers as Targeting Agents to deliver Payloads. Aptamers are small, synthetic, single-stranded nucleic acids that fold into unique secondary structures. Unlike peptides and monoclonal antibodies, they are essentially non-immunogenic even when administered in excess amounts. The publications below explain how biotinylated aptamers combined with Streptavidin-conjugated saporin (Streptavidin-ZAP) can be used to screen aptamers for