Other Fluorescence labeled Proteins

Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins or glycoproteins with a high, specific affinity to sugar residues. Most lectins do not possess enzymatic activity, however they play important roles in biological recognition phenomena involving cells, carbohydrates, and proteins. Lectins enable sensitive detection of cellular carbohydrates allowing to distinguish subtle alteration in glycosylation otherwise indistinguishable cells. They also mediate attachment and binding of bacteria and viruses to their intended targets. Oligosaccharide residues are most abundant on the cell surface, yet they also covalently attached to constituents inside the cell. Fluorescence-labeled lectins can bind to specific configurations of sugar molecules, thus they enable to identify cell types or cellular components, making them versatile detecting agents in microscopy, histochemistry and flow cytometry. In addition, fluorescent lectins might be useful markers of certain cancers because those cells often display altered surface glycoproteins. BioActs offers variety of fluorophore–conjugated lectins for identification of various cellular carbohydrates.

Albumin, making up 55 to 62% of the serum protein, is one of the few carbohydrate-free proteins in blood plasma that plays an important role in maintaining the colloidal osmotic pressure. Albumin also acts as a plasma carrier of several hydrophobic steroid hormones and as a transport protein for hemin and fatty acids. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is a small (~66.5 kDa), stable, moderately non-reactive protein that has been utilized in numerous biochemical applications including ELISA, Western blot, immunohistochemistry, etc. BSA enable to increase antibody functionality and longevity and serves as both a standard in protein quantitation and a stabilizing component in DNA blunt end and replacement assays. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) conjugates are commonly used as tracers in applications where physical dimensions are important. Specifically, fluorescent BSA conjugates have been used in many applications such as quantitative studies of electroporation, measurement of plasma volume, intra cellular protein processing. BioActs provides a wide range of fluorophore-conjugated BSA analogs as well-defined molecular weight tracers for a variety of applications.