A Secondary Antibody-Detecting Molecular Weight Marker with Mouse and Rabbit IgG Fc Linear Epitopes for Western Blot Analysis

PLoS One. 2016 Aug 5;11(8):e0160418. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0160418. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Molecular weight markers that can tolerate denaturing conditions and be auto-detected by secondary antibodies offer great efficacy and convenience for Western Blotting. Here, we describe M&R LE protein markers which contain linear epitopes derived from the heavy chain constant regions of mouse and rabbit immunoglobulin G (IgG Fc LE). These markers can be directly recognized and stained by a wide range of anti-mouse and anti-rabbit secondary antibodies. We selected three mouse (M1, M2 and M3) linear IgG1 and three rabbit (R1, R2 and R3) linear IgG heavy chain epitope candidates based on their respective crystal structures. Western blot analysis indicated that M2 and R2 linear epitopes are effectively recognized by anti-mouse and anti-rabbit secondary antibodies, respectively. We fused the M2 and R2 epitopes (M&R LE) and incorporated the polypeptide in a range of 15-120 kDa auto-detecting markers (M&R LE protein marker). The M&R LE protein marker can be auto-detected by anti-mouse and anti-rabbit IgG secondary antibodies in standard immunoblots. Linear regression analysis of the M&R LE protein marker plotted as gel mobility versus the log of the marker molecular weights revealed good linearity with a correlation coefficient R2 value of 0.9965, indicating that the M&R LE protein marker displays high accuracy for determining protein molecular weights. This accurate, regular and auto-detected M&R LE protein marker may provide a simple, efficient and economical tool for protein analysis.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antibodies / analysis*
  • Antibodies / immunology
  • Biomarkers / analysis
  • Blotting, Western / methods*
  • Epitopes / genetics
  • Epitopes / immunology*
  • Immunoglobulin G / genetics
  • Mice
  • Molecular Weight
  • Rabbits

Substances

  • Antibodies
  • Biomarkers
  • Epitopes
  • Immunoglobulin G

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Research Program for Biopharmaceuticals, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan (MOST 104-2325-B-037-003, MOST 104-2325-B-037-001, MOST 104-2325-B-041-001, MOST 104-2314-B-037-010-MY3) and the Grant of Academia Sinica, Taiwan (BM104010112). This study is also supported partially by Kaohsiung Medical University (D08-00005) and “KMU Aim for the Top 500 Universities grant (KMU-DT105003, KMU-TP104D06 and KMU-TP104C00). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.