Positive controls: Include tissue/lysate from Arabidopsis thaliana mutants overexpressing At5g22610 (e.g., transgenic lines) to confirm antibody binding.
Negative controls: Use knockout mutants (e.g., T-DNA insertion lines) to verify absence of non-specific bands.
Technical controls: Load reference proteins (e.g., actin) to normalize signal intensity and assess gel transfer efficiency.
| Control Type | Purpose | Example | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positive | Confirm target detection | Overexpression line lysate | |
| Negative | Rule out cross-reactivity | At5g22610 knockout mutants | |
| Technical | Quantify protein loading | Actin/Histone H3 blots |
Conflicts in subcellular localization often arise from fixation artifacts or antibody dilution ratios. A stepwise approach is recommended:
Optimize fixation: Compare fresh-frozen vs. formaldehyde-fixed tissues using confocal microscopy.
Titrate antibody: Test dilutions from 1:100 to 1:2000 to balance signal-to-noise ratios.
Orthogonal validation: Pair immunofluorescence with GFP-tagged At5g22610 lines or cell fractionation assays.
Peptide competition: Pre-incubate antibody with 10x molar excess of immunogen peptide; signal loss confirms specificity.
CRISPR-Cas9 knockout validation: Compare wild-type and At5g22610-KO lysates in parallel blots.
Cross-species testing: Verify absence of signal in species lacking At5g22610 homologs (e.g., Chlamydomonas).
Focus on temporal sampling (e.g., rosette leaves at 14-day intervals).
Use tissue-specific promoters in transgenic controls.
Include abiotic stress treatments (e.g., 4°C/24h for cold response).
Quantify protein degradation rates via cycloheximide chase assays.
Native PAGE + Western blotting: Resolve native protein complexes under non-denaturing conditions.
Proximity ligation assays (PLA): Detect in vivo interactions with <40 nm resolution.
Crosslinking-MS: Use DSS or EDC crosslinkers to stabilize transient interactions for mass spectrometry.
Phosphorylation or ubiquitination can alter epitope accessibility:
Phosphatase treatment: Pre-treat lysates with λ-phosphatase to assess phosphorylation-dependent antibody binding.
Ubiquitination assays: Combine immunoprecipitation with anti-ubiquitin blots to distinguish modified isoforms.
Linear regression models: Account for batch effects in multi-experiment datasets.
ANOVA with Tukey’s HSD: Compare ≥3 transgenic lines or treatment conditions.
Bayesian hierarchical models: Integrate noisy qPCR and Western blot data probabilistically.
| Tissue Type | Pretreatment | Antibody Dilution | Detection Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lignified stems | Pectinase (2h, 37°C) | 1:500 | Alkaline phosphatase |
| Senescent leaves | Proteinase K (5min) | 1:1000 | Chemiluminescence |
Transcript-protein correlation: Compare RNA-seq with Western blot time courses.
Phosphoproteomics: Integrate with TiO2-enriched LC-MS/MS data to map modification sites.
GWAS integration: Link allelic variants to protein abundance changes in natural accessions.
Blocking optimization: Test casein (2%) vs. BSA (5%) blockers for plant-specific backgrounds.
Pre-absorption: Incubate serum with Arabidopsis lysate lacking At5g22610.
Epitope mapping: Synthesize 15-mer overlapping peptides to identify cross-reactive regions.