Re: 7-AAD/PE problem

From: Howard Shapiro (hms@shapirolab.com)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 07:52:46 EST


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



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 05 2003 - 19:25:57 EST