Re: cytokines - control reagents

From: Margaret Tropea (mtropea@nih.gov)
Date: Thu Mar 22 2001 - 12:16:30 EST


Maciej,

Intracellular cytokine staining is a lot trickier than surface staining.  I
have found that when I did IL8 on human PMNs my isotype control was
brighter than my IL8 even though I knew by ELISA of cell lysates that the
cells were positive!  Irrelevant isotype means an antibody raised against
something that is not found in or on human cells.  It used to be KHL but it
was latter found that in rare cases people had allergies to shellfish.  A
better control for intracellular staining of cytokines is the permeabilized
cells preincubated with unlabeled antibody followed by labeled antibody.
It is assumed that all the specific sites will be blocked by the first
antibody so that the labeled antibody will be labeling the nonspecific
sites.  Also with B cells there are Fc receptors so it is wise to block
these first with IgG before staining.

Hope this helps.

Margaret


>Dear group,
>
>I've been recently having some problems with control antibodies for
>the intracellular staining. Basically in my tubes with permeabilized
>monocytes, the control glows in the 2nd log.
>
>The same cells, in a non-permeabelized tube,  with another reagent
>for isotype control, ie. surface staining control, is fine (no
>signal).
>
>What I tried doing is using PE-conjuaged anti-CD19 antibody (not
>found on mono's), which works great as a control - but I'm not sure
>if this is a good reagent for intracellular staining?
>
>Sometimes I read people's materials  and methods "irrelevant
>isotype-matched fluorescent antibody was used.." what exactly does
>that mean?
>
>thanks for any suggestions,
>
>maciej
>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Margaret M. Tropea
Critical Care Medicine Department
National Institutes of Health
(ph) 301-496-7752
(fax) 301-480-3389
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



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