IL-33 is mainly expressed by fibroblasts, epithelial cells and endothelial cells. It is the ligand for orphan receptor, ST2. IL-33-ST2 plays a dual role, in some cases promotes Th2 cells and in other cases...
Highly purified collagen type II is important for the induction of arthritis. The rate of incidence is a sore topic among many that are running the collagen induced arthritis model given disease incidence as low as 50% is not uncommon. The purity of the collagen, adjuvant quality, emulsion...
A recent publication using rabbit anti-mouse polyclonal antibody for immunoblotting collagen extracted from cervical tissue of pregnant and non-pregnant mice. The aim of the study is to gain a...
C57Bl/6 is a common background for generating genetically modified strains for use in in vivo models of arthritis. While these strains are commonly used, they are also known for requiring larger amounts of induction reagents, present with...
K/BxN mice spontaneously develop a severe, chronic, progressive inflammatory arthritis at about 27 days of age. They develop auto-antibodies recognizing glucose-6-phosphate isomerase. Serum from these animals when transferred to recipient animals induce arthritis. The mechanism of action...
Antibodies are key to an ELISA and provide the basis for the specificity and sensitivity of the assay. In a previous blog post, we discussed factors such as...
The citrullination of proteins is a post-translational modification where peptidyl arginine residues are converted to peptidyl citrulline by a family of enzymes called peptidyl arginine deiminases (PADs). Citrullination can be found in multiple tissue types and has been shown to occur in both...
Articular cartilage is located on bone surfaces within vertebral joints, and ensures a smooth and almost-frictionless surface for the movement of the bones within the joint. In osteoarthritis, the destruction of cartilage is the primary cause of pain and discomfort. For these reasons,...
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease that affects approximately 1% of the...
ST2