Fox3 Antibody – Mouse Monoclonal

Fox3 is one of a family of mammalian homologues of Fox-1, which was originally discovered in C. elegans as a gene involved in sex determination. Fox is an acronym of "Feminizing locus on X". The mammalian genome contains three genes homologous to C. elegans Fox-1, usually called Fox1, Fox2 and Fox3. All these Fox proteins are about 46kD in size, and each includes a central highly conserved RRM type RNA recognition motif. This motif corresponds to a small ~70 amino acid structure consisting of 4 beta strands and two alpha-helices. An alternate name for Fox3 is hexaribonucleotide binding protein 3, and the Fox proteins are believed to have a role in the regulation of mRNA splicing. Much interest has focused on Fox3 as a result of the recent finding that this protein corresponds to NeuN, a neuronal nuclear antigen. NeuN was first described in 1994 by Mullen et al. (2), who raised a series of monoclonal antibodies to mouse antigens with the original intent of finding mouse species specific markers useful for transplantation experiments. In the event they obtained a clone, called mAb A60, which proved to bind an antigen expressed only in neuronal nuclei and to a lesser extent the cytoplasm of neuronal cells, and which appeared to work on all vertebrates. A few neuronal cell types were not recognized by the the NeuN antibody, such as cerebellar Purkinje cells, olfactory Mitral cells and retinal photoreceptors. However the vast majority of neurons are strongly NeuN positive, and NeuN immunoreactivity has been widely used to measure the neuron/glial ratio in brain regions (3). The protein bound by this antibody was not characterized, though the molecular weight of this protein was shown to be closely spaced bands running at 46-48kD on SDS-PAGE gels. The exact identity of the NeuN protein was not elucidated in this paper or, despite several attempts, for may years later. Despite this the mAb A66 antibody has become very widely used as a robust marker of neurons and neuronal stem cells, and a recent medline search using the keyword "neun" produced over 1,100 hits. Recently Kim et al. used proteomic methods to show that NeuN corresponds to Fox3 (4). NeuN/Fox-3 is therefore a protein which has a function in RNA splicing and is expressed heavily and specifically in neuronal nuclei and cytoplasm. Our antibody was raised against the N-terminal 100 amino acids of human Fox3 as expressed in and purified from E. coli. Full length Fox3 was not used as the immunogen since the three mammalian Fox homologues, namely Fox1, Fox2 and Fox3, include virtually identical RRM motifs. The N-terminal region of the three molecules are much more variable in the three molecules so antibodies specific for each of the three molecules can therefore be generated. For a review of the Fox family of proteins see reference 5. The HGNC name for this protein is RBFOX3.

Small volumes of anti-Fox3 antibody vial(s) may occasionally become entrapped in the seal of the product vial during shipment and storage. If necessary, briefly centrifuge the vial on a tabletop centrifuge to dislodge any liquid in the container`s cap. Certain products may require to ship with dry ice and additional dry ice fee may apply.

MBS643145 is an antibody targeting Fox3. Also known as Fox3 (Fox-3, Fox-1 Homolog C, Hexaribonucleotide-binding Protein 3, Hrnbp3, Neuronal Nuclei, NeuN, RNA Binding Protein Fox-1 Homolog 3, RBFOX3). Reactive in Bovine, Human, Mouse, Porcine, Rat. Host: Mouse.