Neurodegeneration and Neurological Disorders

Neurodegenerative disease has become one of the most exciting and well researched areas of neuroscience in the past few years. This is due to the growing awareness of dementia within our society which is largely caused by diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Neurodegeneration itself is basically the progressive loss of neurons via apoptosis, structural abnormalities, or a general failure to function. We offer antibodies for researching a range of neurodegenerative diseases, including the following:

• Alzheimer’s Disease Antibodies
• Huntington’s Disease Antibodies
• Parkinson’s Disease Antibodies
• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Antibodies

Alzheimer’s Disease Antibodies:

The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s Disease, and due to this it is the most widely research neurodegenerative disorder. Presently, much research is focused on determining a method of early detection to enable improved therapy and care of patients. Clusterin, a novel new blood biomarker has been identified, which may allow for a simple test to detect onset of the disease ahead of symptoms developing. Clusterin, along with other key specificities, can be seen below:

At AbD Serotec we have made neurodegenerative diseases a key focus area, with reagents that include a panel of antibodies to the Huntingtin Protein and antibodies to Amyloid Beta 1-42 for staining amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s Disease brains.

Huntington’s Disease Antibodies:

Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a trinucleotide repeat disease, which commonly has a genetic cause. A mutation on the Huntington gene (htt) is believed to be responsible for the onset of Huntington’s. This gene encodes the Huntingtin Protein, which is located in neurons throughout the brain.

Below are some key specificities for HD research, or search our entire product list by clicking here:

Parkinson’s Disease Antibodies:

Although the causes of certain types of Parkinsonism have been identified, there is still a vast amount which is unknown. Some genes have been recognized to be important in hereditary PD, which accounts for many cases, and toxins are thought to be involved in sporadic forms of the disease. Current research is focused on detecting PD in early stages, as often symptoms do not appear until approximately 70% of the affected dopaminergic nerve cells have been lost.

Below are popular products for researching mechanisms and progression of PD:

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Antibodies:

ALS, or Lou Gehring’s Disease, is a progressive and fatal form of Motor Neurones Disease. Very few cases of the disease are thought to have hereditary cause, with the majority being sporadic. Although oxidative stress has been blamed for the onset of this disease no definitive cause has been established.

Research in ALS often includes some of the below specificities:

Further reading:

1. Uchihara, T. et al. (1996) Widespread immunoreactivity of presenilin in neurons of normal and Alzheimer’s disease brains: double labelling immunohistochemical study.
   Acta. Neuropathol. 92: 325-330