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Acting and reacting in life science biotechnologies

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Renal injury biomarkers

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Renal injury can sometimes be induced by drugs. Some examples of renal damage-inducing drugs include some widespread treatments, such as ß-Lactam antibiotics, bisphosphonates, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, diuretics, aminoglycoside antibiotics, antineoplastic agents and radiocontrast agents.

Since 2008, both the FDA and the EMEA indicated that additional tests may be necessary to assess new drug safety and prevent from renal toxicity. Though these recommendations are voluntary, many pharmaceutical companies have started gathering data on nephrotoxicity biomarkers. [Read more…]

Biomarkers of stemness

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Stem Cells: a great tool for biomedical research! From the embryo at a very early stage of development, stem cells have two important capabilities: to multiply to infinity by simple division and to give rise to all kind of cells of the organism. These properties offer many opportunities, not only for the regenerative medicine but also for the study of genetic diseases and development of new treatments.

One of the first thing to do when you’re working on this kind of cells is to check if they are really stem cells, i.e their stemness. It can be highlighted by different markers by IF, WB, etc…

Today, I invite you to look at a popular antibody allowing you to monitor the level of differentiation of your cellular model as well as an innovation related to antibody array and stem cell research.

[Read more…]

10 Mitochondrial marker antibodies

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There is a high demand for selective fluorescent probes for the imaging of particular organelles and biomarkers in living cells. This is particularly the case for mitochondrial research. In this post, we will focus on another type of powerful research tools (ie. primary antibodies) that have been proven to be very useful for studying mitochondria. The 10 antibodies highlighted here have been successfully used by our clients for immunoblotting of mitochondrial proteins and are all covered by tebu-bio’s Satisfaction Guaranteed.

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Melanoma cell lines: Bridge the gap between patient and lab samples

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Tumour modelling facilitates the study of tumour growth in the tumour microenvironment (TME). Therapies that affect the tumour microenvironment are critical for advancing the fight against cancer as emerging therapies target the network of signaling pathways essential for tumour growth, Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition and metastasis (ex. Wnt/ß-Catenin pathway). Patient derived tumour models, including melanoma cell lines, are invaluable tools to study normal and malignant cells, tumour formation and drug resistance.

Rockland Immunochemicals Inc. has partnered with the Wistar Research Institute, to produce, validate and distribute a diverse panel of low passage melanoma cell lines from freshly excised metastases. More than 100 melanoma cell lines are grouped for BRAF, N-RAS, KIT, PTEN and CDK4 mutations.  These pre-clinical tumour cell lines models can be used to identify the critical target genes and pathways enacted by genomic alterations and lead to more accurately prediction of the effectiveness of novel cancer therapeutics and facilitate cancer research. [Read more…]

Eotaxin-1 as a biomarker of prostate cancer

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PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) has been (and still is) the biomarker of choice for the diagnosis and follow up of patients having a Prostate Cancer (PCa). However, even if it has been used for quite some time now, it is not too specific and its levels may be high for other physiological situations, and not only cancer. Therefore, the need for more specific biomarkers for the correct management of PCa patients is mandatory. A recent publication by Heidegger et al. suggests that Eotaxin-1 (CCL11) could be a more specific biomarker. [Read more…]

miRNA modulates immune response to Mycobacterium

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Source: Kumar M. et al. (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2015.01.007).

The outcome of the interaction between Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and a macrophage depends on the interplay between host defense and bacterial immune subversion mechanisms. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) critically regulate several host defense pathways, but their role in the Mtb-macrophage interplay remains unclear.

Recently, Kumar et al. performed a miRNA profiling, and investigated the downregulation of miR-let-7f in a manner dependent on the Mtb secreted effector ESAT-6. [Read more…]

What the datasheet of an antibody really means

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Today, I’d like to give some tips & tricks on how to select an antibody… by reading its datasheet.

Obvious as it may seem, the datasheet is in fact contractual. It states the characteristics and guaranteed performance of a given product in general, or an antibody in particular. So it should be read carefully before taking a purchasing decision. No matter if you saw a great antibody detecting protein X in polar bear in some publication. If polar bear is not one of the validated species in the datasheet, the antibody is not guaranteed and you won’t get a replacement or refund. [Read more…]

Get your ELISA results before mid-morning coffee!

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Believe it or not, some 20 years ago, performing an ELISA would take around 3 days. Now we are used to ELISAs that can be performed in one day, or even before lunch! (OK, sometimes before Spanish lunch times, which usually are at 14:00 or 15:00).

Fast ELISAs are a new step forward. By performing one washing step only, and through optimised protocols, results can be achieved in around 2.5 hours (this would really be before usual European lunch times… or mid-morning Spanish coffee)! [Read more…]

Cancer and immune cells crosstalk: immunoediting

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Immunoediting of cytokine signals provides another area of pathways which tumours utilise to evade and potentially escape from immunological targeting. This post aims at shedding some light into the Tumour Microenvironment (TME) and particularly on how the tumour recruits accomplices to grow and disseminate. [Read more…]