A reagent forum

My lab works with the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but I frequently get asked questions regarding autophagy reagents for use in higher eukaryotic systems. For example, "Which anti-LC3 antiserum works well in HEK293 cells"? Occasionally I know the answer, or an answer, but not always. Sometimes the information is available in the literature, but it can be difficult to find. With the ever-growing community of autophagy researchers, however, I suspect that many more reagents have been tested, and in many cases not reported. Therefore, I think it would be useful to establish a list of reagents (in particular, antisera and inhibitors) with company-specific information (name and catalog number) that can save other researchers valuable time and money. Autophagy will post the information in the form of a WIKI to allow updates and comments from users.

For example:

Reagent: anti-LC3

Company: Count On Us

Catalog number: 01234

Comments:

Dan Klionsky: I used this antibody and had a very good result (good sensitivity with low background) on protein extracts from mouse.

Danny Klionsky: I also had a good result with this antibody, and found that a higher dilution (1:3,000) worked just as well with rat liver protein extract.

Daniel J. Klionsky: This antibody did not work for yeast Atg8.

We plan to start the WIKI in August 2008, but its success depends entirely on your participation. Please check for the start of this site, and upload your entries. I am open to suggestions for improvements of the site that will make it more useful for autophagy researchers.

http://www.landesbioscience.com/reagent_blog/