ACTA1 Antibody – Mouse Monoclonal

Monoclonal

Mouse

Human, bovine, porcine, rat and mouse

Liquid

Affinity purified

100ug/100ul (lot specific)

Store at -20 degree C/1 year

Actin is one of the most abundant and highly conserved proteins of eukaryotes. Mammalian actins are the product of six different genes with differing distribution patterns in cell types and in tissues. The molecular weight of all six proteins is 42kDa, and one or more actins is found in essentially every type of crude cellular and tissue extract. As a result, antibodies to actin are widely used. As western blotting standards, they can be used to verify that the various steps of the western blotting procedure have been performed correctly. In addition, actin is regarded as a "house keeping" protein which is generally not altered much in expression as a result of experimental manipulations. Thus, quantitation of the actin band on the western is used as a standard against the band density of other proteins.Glyceraldehyde 3 phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is another "house keeping" protein used in this way (see our popular GAPDH antibody MCA-1D4). The actin isotypes were originally classified as α, beta and gamma forms based on their charges which resulted in different mobilities in the isoelectric focusing dimension as seen on 2-dimensional SDS-PAGE. Subsequently, the α spot was found to potentially contain three actin gene products, alphaskeletal actin, alphavascular smooth muscle actin, and alphacardiac muscle. The beta spot contained a single protein called simply beta-actin, while the gamma spot may contain both gamma-1 actin and gamma-2, which are enteric and smooth muscle actins. The six mammalian gene products are very similar as shown by the sequence alignment of the human proteins, which can be downloaded from here. The mostly closely related actin isotypes are 97% identical, while the most distantly related are 94% identical, with most of the variability at the N-terminus (1). With this level of identity antibodies to any one protein may recognize all six isotypes, as is the case with MCA-5J11 (see here). Since our antibody binds all six isotypes very strongly on western blots, it is a very effective blotting standard which can work on any cell type or tissue extract. It also works in immunocytochemical experiments, binding stongly and cleanly to filopodia, membrane ruffles and stress fibers, all known to be rich in actin. The HGNC names for the six actin isotypes are ACTA1, ACTA2, ACTC1, ACTB, ACTG1 and ACTG2.

PBS, pH 7.4 with 0.02% sodium azide.