Anaspec has announced the release of two recombinant proteins: a-synuclein (SNCA) and b-synuclein (SNCB).
These proteins, along with g-synuclein (SNCG), are members of the synuclein family of small proteins expressed primarily in neural tissue and in some tumours.
Synuclein proteins, found only in vertebrates, possess a highly conserved N-terminal domain, with a variable number of 11-residue repeats and a less conserved C-terminal, with a preponderance of acidic residues.
A-synuclein is an abundant protein of 140 residues that is present in high concentration at presynaptic terminals and is found in both soluble and membrane-associated fractions of the brain.
Several possible functions have been suggested, among which are vesicle release and trafficking.
In vitro incubation in the presence of salt (in other words, 0.1M NaCI) with agitation causes a-synuclein to form fibrils.
A-synuclein, labelled with Anaspec's proprietary green dye, Hilyte Fluor 488 (Ex/Em=503/525nm) is also available.
N-terminal of b-synuclein is highly homologous to a-, y-synucleins and consists of degenerative KTKEGV repeats.
Similar to a-synuclein, beta-synuclein is found primarily in the brain; however, it does not associate with Lewy bodies in Parkinson's disease like a-synuclein.
Beta-synuclein was found to inhibit production of phosphatidic acid by the phospholipase D2 transmembrane protein in vitro.
In addition, b-synuclein was detected in many breast and ovarian tumours.
Recent investigations demonstrated that b-synuclein can induce mild experimental auto-immune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in Lewis rats.
