( New antibodies for neuroscience resea...)Antibodies for Studying NMDA Receptor Protein Expression and,,,Synapse-Specific Immunolabeling

New antibodies for neuroscience research

Danny Q. Hoang Michael Browning Xinping Yang Peter Pingerelli
Stratagene Cloning Systems, Inc.

Stratagene introduces affinity purified antibodies for NMDA receptor subunits that are useful for studying expression of the NR2A, NR2B and NR2C subunit proteins in different cell types and brain regions. These antibodies have been used in Western blot analysis of rat brain to study expression of specific NMDA receptor subunits. In addition, these antibodies can be used for immunoprecipitation and immunohistochemistry. Stratagene also introduces an antibody for synapsin I, the synapse-specific protein, that is useful for studying synaptogenesis and synapse elimination.

Glutamate is a major excitatory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system. The ion channels activated by glutamate are typically divided into two classes. Those that are sensitive to N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) are designated NMDA receptors (NMDAR) while those activated by kainate and a-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxalone propionic acid (AMPA) are known as kainate/AMPA receptors (K/AMPAR). The NMDAR plays a critical role in long-term potentiation (LTP), a putative cellular substrate of memory.¹ This receptor has also been linked to conditions involving injury neurotoxicity and in pathological states, such as epilepsy and Parkinsons, Huntingtons and Alzheimers diseases.²

Molecular cloning studies indicate that five NMDA receptor genes exist, including NMDAR1 (NR1) and four NR2 subunits (NR2A-D).³ When reconstituted in vitro, the functional properties of neuronal NMDAR appear to be conferred by the combination of an NR1 subunit with any of the four NR2 subunits.⁴ In addition, there are a number of different splice variants of the N
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