Antibody News

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm. D., PhD.

Insulin resistance in adipocytes is a major feature of metabolic syndrome   . Disrupted adipose tissue metabolism can lead to accumulation of lipid intermediates in insulin-sensitive tissues like liver and skeletal muscles, thereby diminishing insulin sensitivity. A key enzyme in adipocytes that mobilizes free fatty acids from adipose tissue into the bloodstream is...

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm. D., PhD.

We live in a world where 39% of adults are overweight. Our meals trigger the secretion of various gut-derived metabolic hormones called incretins. Fats and carbohydrates in our diet stimulate the release of an incretin from the duodenum called glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide or gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP). GIP acts on its receptor (GIPR) in adipocytes and pancreas to promote fatty acid uptake and insulin...

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm. D., PhD.

The hypothalamus is an insulin receptor-rich brain region. Insulin receptor signaling in the CNS can regulate blood pressure, for example, by increasing sympathetic outflow to the cardiovascular organs. However, the cardiometabolic impact of deleting insulin receptors only in the hypothalamic region is different from deleting insulin receptors in the whole brain. In other words, insulin signaling outside the hypothalamus is also important for cardioregulatory activities. To explore this extra-hypothalamic insulin signaling, scientists from...

By Michalina Hanzel, PhD

Astrocytes are a type of macroglia found in the central nervous system that regulate a vast array of essential brain functions, ranging from synaptogenesis, ion homeostasis and maintenance of the blood-brain barrier, to buffering of neurotransmitters and secretion of neuroactive agents. Considering the plethora of roles that astrocytes...

By Christina Towers, PhD

The majority of cancer patients die from metastatic disease at secondary sites. The threshold to undergo metastasis is high. Only a minority of cancer cells acquire invasive phenotypes like motility and the ability to survive under detached conditions. Consistently, only few cancer cells acquire stem cell like properties, including a more mesenchymal morphology...

By Michalina Hanzel, PhD

FUS mutations in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Fused in sarcoma (FUS) is a ribonucleoprotein that continuously shuttles between the nucleus and the cytoplasm to regulate pre-mRNA splicing, mRNA stability and mRNA transport. Mutations in FUS are found in 4% familial and 1% sporadic cases of amyotrophic lateral...

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm. D., PhD.

Stroke    is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Cellular players – neurons, astrocytes, endothelial and stromal cells – involved in post-stroke repair through angiogenesis...

By Victoria Osinski

Lymphocytes, monocytes, and granulocytes, oh my!

There are many different immune cells (leukocytes) that are found in circulation along with other cellular components such as platelets and red blood cells. Red blood cells (RBCs) are the most abundant, followed by neutrophils and lymphocytes. The immune cells can be categorized as either mononuclear cells (monocytes and lymphocytes...

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm. D., PhD.

Protein phosphorylation refers to a reversible post-translational modification in which a protein kinase adds a phosphate group to an amino acid residue of a target protein. Protein phosphorylation, especially tyrosine phosphorylation, is one of the early events in signal transduction in all eukaryotic cells.

Once a cell is lysed, proteases and phosphatases are released that can degrade or...

By Rosa Moreno, PhD.

This new introductory guide to methods and techniques in immunohistochemistry is written by Dr. Alexander E. Kalyuzhny, Bio-Techne, for the Springer series: Techniques in Life Science and Biomedicine for the Non-Expert   . This guide provides a comprehensive introduction along with conceptual and methodological basics for new users to ensure a clear understanding upon which researchers may build their expertise in ...

By Michalina Hanzel, PhD

Alexander disease is a progressive and fatal neurological disease with phenotypes ranging from myelination abnormalities, gait ataxia and megalencephaly to predisposition to seizures. It is an autosomal dominant disease with mutations in the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) gene that result in astrocytic cytoplasmic inclusions, termed Rosenthal fibers, which contribute to the global neurological...