[Histonet] interesting SMI 31 antibody results

[Tyrone Genade]

Hello all,

I'm hoping someone has some experience in using the SMI 31 antibody to
label neurofilament in healthy and diseased tissue.

I have been using SMI 31R (from Covance) to label axons in the fish,
Nothobranchius guentheri, with good success---I can distinguish axons
and nerve tracts very nicely. I've used it on whole mount brains
collected from young, middle age and old fish. What I see is that the
antibody is labeling cell bodies as well as axons in the optic tectum
in all whole mounts regardless of age (though the intensity of the
signal does appear to increases with age within the cell bodies).

The Covance MSDS says "in pathological conditions, reaction with SMI
31 may be found in neuronal cell bodies." The AbCam MSDS says "In
pathological conditions, reaction with ab24573 may be found also in
neuronal cell bodies. Numerous studies have indicated that
phosphorylated epitopes on other target proteins like MAP1B and tau
are also recognized by SMI-31R."

Has SMI 31 (ever) been seen to label non-pathological neuronal
cell-bodies? I'm very happy to see cell-body labeling as I expect to
see neurodegeneration, but not in young fish...

Comments? Thoughts? Any articles you think I should read?
-- 
Tyrone Genade
http://tgenade.freeshell.org
email: tgenade <@t> freeshell.org
tel: +27-84-632-1925 (c)
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