Can tubulin be used as a loading control in metal stress?

To check this, Anti-tubulin alpha chain antibodies were used on extracts from Nicotiana tabacum plants, treated with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with 2 different coatings.

Tubulin alpha protein content (marked by a blue arrow in the image to the right) was influenced by silver nanoparticle treatment. Similar results were obtained for tubulin gamma chain.

Therefore, it can be concluded that:

Metal induced stress affected the expression of tubulin alpha and gamma, and that therefore, these proteins cannot be used as loading controls under these conditions.




 
Western blot using anti-tubulin antibodies on metal stressed samples
All experimental details can be found here.
Courtesy of MSc, Karla Košpić, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science Department of Biology, Croatia.
 Technical blog

Technical blog


Close