New ready-to-use kit for simple labeling of cellular lipids

Excess of neutral lipids in cells has been found to be a prime suspect in various disease states, from Alzheimer’s to Atherosclerosis. In order to more easily characterize this state, Marker Gene Technology have developed an easy-to-use fluorescent kit to label and differentiate both neutral and polar lipids in live cells.

Foam cells and lipid engorged macrophages have been found to be prime suspects in the progression of various disease states, from Alzheimer’s to atherosclerosis. They are characterized by the accumulation of intracellular neutral lipid droplets from ingesting excess lipoproteins, giving them a foam-like appearance. The intracellular fat vacuoles contain neutral lipids like cholesterol, lipoproteins and triglycerides.

Developed by Marker Gene Technology, the DyRect^TM Live-Cell Neutral Lipid Imaging Kit (M2675), can be used to label and analyze cellular lipids, as easy as counting to three (fig.1). This new solution easily fluorescently label both neutral and polar lipids in the cell.

When stained with the DyRect^TM imaging kit, neutral lipids will fluoresce green while polar lipids like phospholipids will fluoresce red (fig.2). Any free dye not associated with lipid remains non-fluorescent eliminating the need of extra wash steps. The environmentally sensitive probe used in this staining method can be added directly to live cell cultures to label the fat vacuoles within the cells and can subsequently be analyzed with all flow cytometry, digital microplate, high-content screening, or fluorescence microscopy platforms or instrumentation.

Also supplied in the labelling kit, is an optimized Opti-Klear™ Live Cell Imaging Buffer, developped by Marker Gene Technology to obtain better imaging results.

Don’t waste your time anymore with lipid labelling, contact your local tebu-bio office, to use the new Live-Cell Neutral Lipid Imaging Kit from Marker Gene Technology.

Don’t miss all our other live cell imaging tools, and our new membrane tension reporter probe : Flipper-TR.

REFERENCES :

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Brown MS, Ho YK, Goldstein JL (1980) “The cholesteryl ester cycle in macrophage foam cells. Continual hydrolysis and re-esterification of cytoplasmic cholesteryl esters.” Journal of Biological Chemistry. 1980 Oct 10;255(19):9344-9352.  Casserly I, Topol EJ (2004) “Convergence of atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease: inflammation, cholesterol, and misfolded proteins.” The Lancet. 2004 Apr 3;363(9415):1139-1146.

Chen W, Jin F, Cao G, Mei R, Wang Y, Long P, Wang X, Ge W (2018) “ApoE4 May be a Promising Target for Treatment of Coronary Heart Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease.” Current drug targets. 2018 Jul 1;19(9):1038-1044.

Werner T, Liebisch G, Grandl M, Schmitz G (2006) “Evaluation of a high-content screening fluorescence-based assay analyzing the pharmacological modulation of lipid homeostasis in human macrophages.” Cytometry A (69):3 200-202.