beta Actin Antibody

beta-actin – a housekeeping protein

Actin is a major component of the cytoskeleton, with six known isoforms in mammals. Four of these isoforms are expressed primarily in striated and smooth muscle cells, whereas beta-actin and gamma-actin isoforms are ubiquitously expressed. Though beta-actin has a molecular weight of 42 kDa, degradation by apoptosis will produce 38-41 kDa fragments on a Western blot.

Proteintech’s monoclonal beta-actin antibody (60008-1-Ig) (Figure 1) recognizes all fragments, while 66009-1-Ig antibody (Figure 2) can only detect the full length of beta-actin. Beta-actin is highly conserved among species. However, the N-terminal sequence is less conserved among species than the C-terminus.  Since the immunogen for 60008-1-Ig is the internal sequence, this antibody can recognize a wide range of species and can be broadly used in research.

Why is beta-actin commonly used as a control in Western blots?

Loading controls are essential for proper interpretation of Western blots. They can be used to normalize the levels of protein detected by confirming that protein loading is the same across the gel. In Western blotting, beta-actin (42 kDa) is commonly chosen as a loading control due to its broad and consistent expression across all eukaryotic cell types and the fact that expression levels of this protein are not affected by most experimental treatments (Figure 3).Beta-Actin runs as a “loading control” to show that very similar amounts of protein were loaded in each lane. This is essential in some experimental systems where it may not be possible to always collect the exact same number of cells for each sample, such as when working with primary cells, tissue samples, or systems where you may be altering protein synthesis, cell size/number, or apoptosis (1).

Figure 3. Western blot analysis of beta-actin in various tissues and cell lines using Proteintech antibody 66009-1-Ig at a dilution of 1:20000 (Exposure time: 10 seconds).

beta-actin and human diseases

Beta-actin has been implicated in hand, foot, and mouth disease by proteomics and large diffuse B-cell lymphoma (3, 4).

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References:

1. Total Protein Analysis as a Reliable Loading Control for Quantitative Fluorescent Western Blotting
2. Beta-actin variant is necessary for Enterovirus 71 replication.
3. Discovery and prioritization of somatic mutations in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) by whole-exome sequencing.