Neurotrophins & Growth Factors

Neurotrophic factors and growth factors are widely used by researchers across a variety of disciplines: stem cell and general cell culture, cell differentiation, basic research.

Pioneers in biotinylated neurotrophins

Biotinylated neurotrophins

The action of neurotrophins is essential for proper neuron function. Alomone Labs has developed biotinylated neurotrophins as a novel platform for studying cell signaling via neurotrophins. The use of these labeled proteins (e.g. NGF-biotin, BDNF-biotin, proBDNF-biotin) yields highly sensitive detection of:

✓ Receptor internalization kinetics
✓ Retrograde transport
✓ Protein movement across neurons

In a recent game changing paper, Zahavi et al. elegantly and remarkably refute the current model of tyrosine kinase receptor activation. TrkB, the receptor for BDNF, does not undergo dimerization at the cell membrane following BDNF activation.

The authors show that TrkB signals as a monomer from the plasma membrane upon activation through a series of complex experiments involving recombinant/chimeric proteins, immunostaining and microscopy. Alomone Labs human BDNF-Biotin (#B-250-B) plays a pivotal role in this explicitly controversial, formidable, and exciting paper. Using biotinylated BDNF, the authors show that monomeric TrkB receptors bind BDNF by a coordinated lateral movement of both proteins (Zahavi, E.E. et al. (2018) Sci. Signal. 11, eaao4006.).

Learn more about our biotinylated neurotrophins portfolio

Retrograde transport of Alomone Labs mouse NGF 2.5S-Biotin conjugated to Qdot in DRG explants.
mouse NGF 2.5S-Biotin (#N-240-B)

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