NMDA (phospho Tyr1252) Antibody

The NMDA receptor (NMDAR) plays an essential role in memory, neuronal development and it has also been implicated in several disorders of the central nervous system including Alzheimer’s, epilepsy and ischemic neuronal cell death (Grosshans et al., 2002; Wenthold et al., 2003; Carroll and Zukin, 2002) . The rat NMDAR1 (NR1) was the first subunit of the NMDAR to be cloned. The NR1 protein can form NMDA activated channels when expressed in Xenopus oocytes but the currents in such channels are much smaller than those seen in situ. Channels with more physiological characteristics are produced when the NR1 subunit is combined with one or more of the NMDAR2 (NR2 A-D) subunits (Ishii et al., 1993) . Phosphorylation of Tyr1252 is thought to potentiate NMDA receptor-dependent influx of calcium (Takasu et al., 2002) .

The antibody has been directly tested for reactivity in Western blots with rat tissue. It is anticipated that the antibody will react with bovine, canine, chicken, human, mouse, non-human primate and zebra fish based on the fact that these species have 100% homology with the amino acid sequence used as antigen.

Carroll RC, Zukin RS (2002) NMDA-receptor trafficking and targeting: implications for synaptic transmission and plasticity. Trends Neurosci 25:571-577.

Grosshans DR, Clayton DA, Coultrap SJ, Browning MD (2002) LTP leads to rapid surface expression of NMDA but not AMPA receptors in adult rat CA1. Nat Neurosci 5:27-33.

Ishii T, Moriyoshi K, Sugihara H, Sakurada K, Kadotani H, Yokoi M, Akazawa C, Shigemoto R, Mizuno N, Masu M, Nakanishi S (1993) Molecular characterization of the family of the N-methyl- D-aspartate receptor subunits. J Biol Chem 268:2836-2843.