Determining whether anti-phospho-SMAD1/5 and anti-phospho-SMAD2 antibodies can recognize formaldehyde-fixed epitopes

Kinase activity of ALK2 and ALK5 in the cells can be quantified using specific antibodies that bind to target proteins once they are phosphorylated. However, conventional detection in Western blot requires large amount of samples and processing time (proteins are extracted from a large number of cells, linearized, separated in electric field and blotted onto a Read More …

Efficacy of inhibitor on wild-type ALK2 and R206H mutant in C2C12 cells (by DLA)

There are concerns that compounds that are effective in inhibiting ALK2 by occupying its ATP-binding pocket might have reduced efficacy against mutant ALK2. That will be undesirable since the compounds should also target the gain-of-function mutant ALK2 in DIPG cells. The following experiment takes advantage of the fact that Activin A activates ALK2-R206H mutant but Read More …

USP5 Zf-UBD DSF Assay Optimization

In a previous post, I outlined initial experiments to develop a differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) assay for USP5 Zf-UBD where I measure the resistance of USP5 to thermal denaturation as small molecules bind and stabilize the protein. I previously could not observe any significant change in the melting temperature of USP5, even using a ubiquitin Read More …

SNS-032 analogues update

SNS-032 is a CDK2 inhibitor with an IC50 of 48 nM in cell-free assay and is 10 and 20-fold selective over CDK1 and CDK4 respectively (http://www.selleckchem.com/products/SNS-032.html). In my previous post (https://openlabnotebooks.org/introduction-to-my-kcgs-cdk-family-project/) I mention the aim to develop a narrow profile inhibitors for understudied kinase. To do so I have synthesized SNS-032 analogues since SNS-032 inhibits Read More …

Determining CD34 expression in the presence and absence of stroma

We are currently working on a manuscript to characterize one of the cell lines that we established from growing patient samples. I previously discussed how we established OCI-AML-20 and I’m currently working on some experiments to complete the manuscript. One of those experiments is determining whether the CD34 expression seen in OCI-AML-20 relies on the Read More …

Fragment screening data processing and fine screen design

Well, it’s been another week of not too much actual lab work and quite a lot of computer work. The lab work I did do was incredibly frustrating due to spending time searching around for reagents and then having a water problem with the liquid handler that is used to set up the fine screens. Read More …