Polyclonal antibody to NOD2 (Card15)

Innate immunity is present in all animals and is the common mode of defense against microorganisms. It detects microorganisms by specific proteins called pattern-recognition molecules (PRMs) (reviewed in Werts et al. 2006) . There is a limited set of PRMs in each animal genome, and it has been postulated that the PRMs were evolutionarily selected to detect conserved components or motifs of microorganisms called pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) . PAMPs are found in a wide range of microorganisms and recognition of PAMPs by PRMs activates inflammatory signaling pathways, thereby stimulating an immune response. NOD (nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain) proteins are a family of cytosolic proteins which have been implicated in innate recognition of bacteria, the induction of inflammatory responses, and the regulation of caspase activation and apoptosis. NOD2/CARD15 is a PRM that recognizes specific peptidoglycan (PGN) components of bacterial cell walls (reviewed in Strober et al. 2006, and Inohara et al. 2003) . NOD2 is expressed in cells that are exposed to PGN under physiological conditions including antigen-presenting cells (APCs) such as macrophages and dendritic cells, and epithelial cells (reviewed in Strober et al. 2006) . NOD2 is thought to play a role in the pathogenesis of human gastrointestinal disease. Polymorphisms and mutations in NOD2 are associated with susceptibility to Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (Leung et al., 2006) . Additionally, polymorphisms in NOD2 have also been found to be associated with Graft-versus-Host Disease (GVHD) (Holler et al., 2004) .This association of NOD2 gene polymorphisms with gastrointestinal disease and GVHD suggests that NOD2 gene polymorphisms play a role in pro-inflammatory diseases. This antibody recognizes NOD2, a 1040 amino acid protein. This antibody also recognizes NOD2 alternatively spliced and mutated forms which contain the peptide immunogen sequence including NOD2 short, a 273 amino acid protein.