BD Transduction Laboratories™ Purified Mouse Anti-Beclin

Autophagy is the bulk degradation of cellular proteins through the autophagosomic-lysosomal pathway. This process is important for normal cell growth, and may be disrupted in tumor cells. Beclin is a Bcl-2 binding protein that is homologous to the yeast autophagy gene, apg6/vps30. The structure of beclin includes a Bcl-2 binding coiled-coil region, and a leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES). Beclin protein colocalizes with intracytoplasmic organelles and nuclei in normal COS7 and MCF7 cells. However, inhibition of CRM1-dependent nuclear export leads to beclin localization primarily in the nucleus. Mutation of the NES domain of beclin also prevents nuclear export, as well as suppresses beclin-mediated nutrient deprivation-induced autophagy. In addition, these beclin mutants can not inhibit in vitro clonigenicity and in vivo tumorigenicity of MCF7 cells. Beclin interaction with Bcl-2 may be involved with host viral defense, since overexpression of beclin inhibits Sindbis virus replication and expression of beclin lacking the Bcl-2 binding domain has no antiviral effects. Thus, beclin may be an important component of complexes involved in autophagy.

This antibody is routinely tested by western blot analysis. Other applications were tested at BD Biosciences Pharmingen during antibody development only or reported in the literature.