antibodies against conserved amidated neuropeptide epitopes enrich the comparative neurobiology toolbox守恒的酰胺化神经肽抗体抗原表位丰富比较神经生物学工具箱.pdfVIP

Antibodies against conserved amidated neuropeptide epitopes enrich the comparative neurobiology toolbox Conzelmann and Jékely Conzelmann and Jékely EvoDevo 2012, 3:23 /content/3/1/23 Conzelmann and Jékely EvoDevo 2012, 3:23 /content/3/1/23 RESEARCH Open Access Antibodies against conserved amidated neuropeptide epitopes enrich the comparative neurobiology toolbox * Markus Conzelmann and Gáspár Jékely Abstract Background: Neuronal antibodies that show immunoreactivity across a broad range of species are important tools for comparative neuroanatomy. Nonetheless, the current antibody repertoire for non-model invertebrates is limited. Currently, only antibodies against the neuropeptide RFamide and the monoamine transmitter serotonin are extensively used. These antibodies label respective neuron-populations and their axons and dendrites in a large number of species across various animal phyla. Results: Several other neuropeptides also have a broad phyletic distribution among invertebrates, including DLamides, FVamides, FLamides, GWamides and RYamides. These neuropeptides show strong conservation of the two carboxy-terminal amino acids and are α-amidated at their C-termini. We generated and affinity-purified specific polyclonal antibodies against each of these conserved amidated dipeptide motifs. We thoroughly tested antibody reactivity and specificity both by peptide pre-incubation experiments and by showing a close correlation between the immunostaining signals and mRNA expression patterns of the respective precursor genes in the annelid Platynereis. We also demonstrated the usefulness of these antibodies by performing immunostaining