Spider silk is an exceptional biomaterial known for centuries and used in medicine as suture threads and wound dressing thanks to its tensile strength, thinness and biocompatibility. Many of the properties of spider silk are... Read more
With an aging population, neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and stroke affect millions worldwide, with projections suggesting a steep rise of cases by 2050. While some... Read more
By 2050, the number of people aged >65 is expected to double. This will lead to a significant rise in the prevalence of age-related diseases. Many of these conditions are linked to two major processes:... Read more
Amytracker are optotracers with structure-dependent photo-physical properties. All Amytracker variants are designed to bind to the Congo red binding pocket on the amyloid fibril and require a theoretical minimum of eight in-register parallel-β-strands for binding.... Read more
Amytracker are optotracers with structure-dependent photo-physical properties. All Amytracker variants are designed to bind to the Congo red binding pocket on the amyloid fibril and require a theoretical minimum of eight in-register parallel-β-strands for binding.... Read more
Around 30% of the people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus report persistent symptoms for a long time after the acute infection ends. While the development of this long-term manifestation after COVID, referred to as Long... Read more
The macromolecules and organelles within cells are not permanent and need to get replaced over time. To do this, cells need to both produce new components and to degrade the old ones. The degradation of... Read more
Tau is an intracellular protein which associates with microtubules and stabilizes them. Physiologically, Tau is phosphorylated to facilitate release from the microtubules and thereby favor microtubule shortening. In a pathological state, Tau is hyperphosphorylated which... Read more
Aggregates of α-synuclein are the major component of Lewy bodies which are the pathological hallmark of a series of neurodegenerative disorders, called Lewy body diseases or Synucleinopathies. In physiological conditions, α-synuclein regulates synaptic vesicle-release and... Read more
Human cells typically assemble a myriad of different proteins which constitute the work-force of the cellular environment and each of them is dedicated to a very specific function. The ability of a protein to perform... Read more
Amyloidosis is the name for a group of conditions caused by a build-up of amyloid protein deposits in organs and tissues throughout the body. A great many diseases can be classified as amyloidosis. The most... Read more
Phase separation of biomolecules has recently been recognised as an important cellular process governing homogeneous organisation which is a driving force for cellular self-assembly. Multivalent interactions between biomolecules give rise to condensed phases with a... Read more
We named our Amytracker molecules after their peak emission wavelength when they are bound to their target. That means, when Amytracker is bound to a target, it will emit fluorescence at peak emission indicated by... Read more
Amytracker fluorescence is one order of magnitude brighter than Congo Red. The affinity of Amytracker is in the nM range and thus, Amytracker is typically used at several fold lower concentrations. In a comparative study... Read more
We tested a wide range of human tissues and didn't observe unspecific staining in most cell types. Positive Amytracker staining was obtained in Paneth cell granules in the intestine stained and the binding target in... Read more
Generally, we recommend light fixation using ice-cold ethanol or acetone. This is because formalin-fixation has been shown to reduce the ability to stain inclusion bodies. Otherwise there shouldn't be any issues. You can use paraffin... Read more
It is likely that Amytracker works on all kinds of tissues and species. Amytracker targets and detects the physical topography of the tertiary- and quaternary structure of mature and pre-fibrillar amyloid deposits. As such it... Read more
All Amytracker molecules are designed to interact with the same binding site on the amyloid oligomer. Competition assays have shown that Amytracker competes for the congo red binding site but show much higher affinity. In... Read more
Amytracker have been shown to bind with high affinity to aggregates composed of transthyretin (TTR) in Drosophila models of transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR), as well as in human tissues The optotracers have been used to detect... Read more
When Amytracker are not bound to a target, they exhibit an extremely low background fluorescence. Amytracker have also been shown to neither accelerate nor inhibit amyloid formation when used in recommended (substochoimetric) concentrations. Therefore, Amytracker... Read more
We supply Amytracker molecules with high affinity toward amyloid proteins. For staining of cryo- or paraffin sections, diluting the supplied solutions 1:1000 should be sufficient. If you want to increase the intensity, you might increase... Read more
Under some conditions, peptides or proteins may convert from their soluble forms into unsoluble highly ordered fibrillar aggregates. These aggregates may cause disease through various mechanisms. Prominent examples of aggregating peptides related to neurodegenerative diseases... Read more
Amyloid detection has been notoriously difficult since current methods are either laborious, toxic and/or tend to detect mature fibrils but not protofibrils or premature aggregates. Amytracker are fluorescent tracer molecules binding to amyloids with high... Read more
The kinetics of amyloid formation from conformational conversion of a peptide or protein into its fibrillar form (amyloid) is studied using fibrillation assays using a spectrophotometer. This technique requires extremely low background fluorescence of the... Read more
Super-resolution microscopy is becoming an important tool to study biological structures. As super-resolution techniques like STED overcome the physical diffraction limit of light, new microscopes with ever-decreasing resolution limits are being developed. Using these exciting... Read more
As functional aspects of amyloids as well as the dynamic processes involving amyloid formation and amyloid toxicity are of growing interest many researchers are interested to study these processes in living cells. Non-invasive techniques like... Read more
Intravital imaging is allowing researchers to capture images of biological processes in live animals. It has become an advanced tool to study the progression of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases in transgenic mice. In vivo... Read more
