Re: 7-AAD/PE problem

From: Richard Haugland (richard.haugland@probes.com)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 18:47:07 EST


Howard (as usual) is probably right.  7-AAD absorbs out past 600 nm and its
absorption strongly overlaps the emission of R-PE.

Absorption and fluorescence emission spectra of 7-aminoactinomycin D (A-1310)
bound to DNA.

[Spectra: 12KB]



Absorption and fluorescence emission spectra of R-phycoerythrin (P-801) in pH 7.5
buffer.

[Spectra: 12KB]



Howard Shapiro wrote:

> Brian Newsom wrote-
>
> >Question to all of you DNA experts. We have someone who is tring to run an
> >experiment staining a nuclear localized protien with PE and then staining
> >with 7-AAD. The 7-AAD staining works well with a good CV. The antibody
> >staining looks decent (although low percentage and fairly dim) when by
> >itself, but when the 7-AAD is added the antibody staining totally goes away.
> >Is there an energy transfer or steric hinderance issue that may be going on?
>
> Steric hindrance is unlikely to be the problem since the antibody gets in
> in the absence of 7-AAD, which itself is not that big a molecule.  The loss
> of PE fluorescence is almost certainly due to energy transfer to the
> 7-AAD.  Since energy transfer works at very short range, we don't expect or
> see this effect when surface antigens are stained with PE- (or
> fluorescein-) labeled antibodies and 7-AAD (or PI) is used to stain nuclei,
> but it can be very noticeable when working with nuclear antigens, as is the
> case here.
>
> -Howard



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