Abstract
Casein zymography has become one of the gold standard assays for monitoring mammalian calcium-activated proteases (calpains) in purified enzyme, cell, or tissue samples. This calpain zymography method takes advantages of (1) casein is an excellent substrate for major isoforms of calpains (Calpain-1, 2 and 3), (2) the embedded casein is digested into small peptides where the calpain bands are located, thus creating a clear zone upon Commassie blue gel staining, and (3) the calpain isoforms have different gel mobility under native gel conditions. Casein zymography is also useful in studying reversibility of inhibitor binding to calpains.
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Acknowledgment
This study is supported in part by NIH grant R21 NS085455-01 (K.K.W.).
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Wang, K.K.W. (2017). Calpain Zymography: General Methodology and Protocol. In: Wilkesman, J., Kurz, L. (eds) Zymography. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1626. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7111-4_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7111-4_26
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