Guinea-pig polyclonal antibody to nicastrin

Edited by the Laboratorytalk editorial team Jul 11, 2001

Immunohistochemical analysis reveals that nicastrin is localised to neurons known to be affected by Alzheimer's; Chemicon announces its new guinea-pig polyclonal antibody

Nicastrin is a novel transmembrane glycoprotein, which forms high molecular weight complexes with presenilin-1 and presenilin-2 and which has been implicated in Alzheimer's disease.

Nicastrin also binds carboxy-terminal derivatives of the b-amyloid precursor protein (bAPP), and modulates the production of the amyloid b-peptide (Ab) from these derivatives.

Since nicastrin binds to bAPP, and is able to modulate the production of b-amyloid peptide, this implicates a direct role for nicastrin in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and suggests that it could be a suitable target for therapeutic intervention.

Chemicon is pleased to announce its new guinea-pig polyclonal antibody to nicastrin (Catalogue Number AB5890).

Immunohistochemical analysis reveals that nicastrin is localised to neurons known to be affected by Alzheimer's disease such as the hippocampal formation, entorhinal cortex and subiculum.

Selected neurons in other regions known to be affected by Alzheimer's disease such as thalamic nuclei, Purkinje cells of the cerebellum, motoneurons in the brain stem and spinal cord also express nicastrin immunoreactivity.

Direct double-labelling immunofluorescence histochemistry shows co-localisation of nicastrin with presenilin-1 in a large number of neurons.

Since the antibody is generated in guinea-pig, it will be suitable for direct double-labelling studies.