Rabbit polyclonal anti-α-Synuclein antibody is used to tag α-Synuclein for detection and quantitation by immunocytochemical and immunohistochemical (IHC) techniques, such as immunoblotting. It is also used as a probe to determine the presence and roles of α-Synuclein in plaques of Alzheimer′s disease (AD) brains.
The synucleins are a family of soluble presynaptic proteins that are abundant in neurons and include α-synuclein, β-synuclein, and γ-synuclein. Human α-synuclein (also known as the non-amyloid component of plaques precursor protein or NACP) is a 140-amino acid polypeptide that is encoded by a gene on chromosome 4. It was originally isolated from plaques of Alzheimer′s disease (AD) brains as a 19 kDa protein precursor of the highly hydrophobic 35-amino acid peptide, nonamyloid component (NAC) of plaques. The NAC can self-aggregate into fibrils and induce aggregation of the β-amyloid peptide. α-Synuclein is highly abundant in presynaptic terminals, and is a major component of Lewy bodies (LBs). Pathogenic point mutations in the α-synuclein gene are linked to familial Parkinson′s disease (PD) in rare kindreds. However, most neurodegenerative disorders with LBs are associated with abnormal accumulation of wild-type, α-synuclein. α-Synuclein is expressed primarily in brain, but is also expressed in low levels in all tissues examined except liver.
