Peptide Competition and Phosphatase Treatment: Rat brain lysates were resolved by SDS-PAGE on a 10% polyacrylamide gel and transferred to PVDF. Membranes were either left untreated (1-4) or treated with lambda (ë) phosphatase (5) and blocked with a 5% BSA-TBST buffer for one hour at room temperature, then incubated with ab5683 antibody for two hours at room temperature in a 3% BSA-TBST buffer, following prior incubation with: no peptide (1, 5), the non-phosphopeptide corresponding to the immunogen (2), a generic phosphothreonine-containing peptide (3), or, the phosphopeptide immunogen (4). After washing, membranes were incubated with goat F(ab’)2 anti-rabbit IgG HRP conjugate and bands were detected using the Pierce SuperSignal method. The data show that only the peptide corresponding to CaM Kinase II alpha [pT286] blocks the antibody signal. The data also show that phosphatase stripping eliminates the signal, verifying that the antibody is phospho-specific. Peptide Competiti

Immunofluorescent staining for CaMKII alpha phospho (T286) using ab5683 (1/300, incubated for 18 hours) in rat spinal cord. To induce CaMKII alpha phospho (T286) protein expression, a noxious stimulus was administered to the rat 5 minutes prior to 4% PFA perfusion fixation (this is a known paradigm for inducing phosphorylation CaMKII in some spinal neurons). The resulting immunofluorescent staining for CaMKII alpha phospho (T286) protein is observed in the cytoplasm of many dorsal horn spinal neurons (surrounding the central canal [A] or in the ventral horn [B]). Omition of primary antibody resulted in a lack of staining (data not shown).
 
Protocol details: Tissue was prepared by 4% paraformaldehyde cardiac perfusion fixation. Tissue was frozen on dry ice and then embedded in OCT compound and cut on cryostat. An antigen retrieval step was not neccesary for the IHC protocol.

ICC/IF image of ab5683 stained PC12 cells. The cells were 4% formaldehyde fixed (10 min) and then incubated in 1%BSA / 10% normal goat serum / 0.3M glycine in 0.1% PBS-Tween for 1h to permeabilise the cells and block non-specific protein-protein interactions. The cells were then incubated with the antibody (ab5683, 5µg/ml) overnight at +4°C. The secondary antibody (green) was Alexa Fluor® 488 goat anti-rabbit IgG (H+L) used at a 1/1000 dilution for 1h. Alexa Fluor® 594 WGA was used to label plasma membranes (red) at a 1/200 dilution for 1h. DAPI was used to stain the cell nuclei (blue) at a concentration of 1.43µM.

Primary Antibody 1/1000 24 hours at 4°C
Secondary Antibody (1/5000): HRP-conjugated Goat polyclonal to rabbit IgG
Blocking step: 5% BSA for 12 hours at 4°C

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