Serum concentrations of itraconazole should be measured in patients receiving this drug to ensure that therapeutic concentrations are being achieved. This is necessary as drug absorption can be variable, and levels may be lowered by interactions with other drugs. The assay will give an indication of whether suitable blood levels have been achieved. - [Read Bioassay for Determining Itraconazole Levels in Blood]
Mice fed with the cytohesin inhibitor SecinH3 for two days develop hepatic insulin resistance that can be identified by reduced liver glycogen levels, increased serum insulin and ketone body levels and decreased serum non-esterified fatty acid. To confirm the presence and identity of SecinH3 in mouse liver, we extracted the compound from liver homogenates with chloroform and identified it by LC/MS. - [Read Extraction of the SecinH3 from Mouse Liver Protocol]
Using confocal laser-scanning microscope & GFP fusion proteins in time-lapse imaging to visualize the behavior of organelles and to track membrane-bound transport intermediates that bud off from organelles. Practical issues related to construction & expression of GFP fusion proteins are discussed. Essential for optimizing the brightness and expression levels of GFP fusion proteins so that intracellular membrane-bound structures containing these fusion proteins can be readily visualized. - [Read Imaging of Organelle Membrane Systems and Membrane Traffic in Living Cells]
For many sources of antigens, one useful method of lysis is to treat cells with harsh, denaturing solutions to release most of the protein antigens, as described here. The lysates are then diluted to reduce the denaturing conditions to levels that are suitable for the formation of antibody-antigen complexes. The resulting solution is precleared prior to immunoprecipitation. - [Read Immunoprecipitation: Denaturing Lysis Protocol]
Serum concentrations of voriconazole should be measured in patients receiving this drug to ensure that therapeutic levels are being achieved. The assay will give an indication of whether suitable blood levels have been achieved. - [Read Protocol: Bioassay for Determining Voriconazole Levels in Blood]
Feeding euplotids with algae can lead to asynchronous cell starvation and vastly different cell sizes within a culture. Asynchronous starvation also leads to different levels of mating competence. Furthermore, algal pigment remnants can interfere with many applications (e.g., fluorescence microscopy). - [Read Refeeding Marine Euplotids with Bacteria Protocol]
Describes how FACSort can be used to enrich for transfected mouse cells expressing high levels of the human thrombin receptor. The sorted fraction can then be cultured in vivo and reanalyzed 12 days later to show that it remains enriched for thrombin receptor-expressing cells. - [Read Sorting Transfected Cells Based on Gene Expression, Followed by Culture in Vivo]
Procedure describes how it denatures most of the modification and degradation proteins immediately giving the most accurate read out of the true levels of protein at the time of harvest. However, in cases where detection is a problem, a limited purification (e.g. isolation of nuclear extract for the detection of transcription factors) might be required to allow analysis. - [Read Western Blot Analysis of Endogenous Gene Expression Protocol]
During development many plant cells undergo endoreduplication, whereby ploidy increases to a multiple of the normal 2C content. For eg., trichome development is accompanied by an increase in ploidy to 32C, indicating that trichome cells undergo four rounds of endoreduplication. Protocol describes DNA levels, and hence developmental progress in the corresponding cells, are measured by staining the DNA with a fluorescent marker and then quantifying the fluorescence of individual nuclei. - [Read Whole-Mount DAPI Staining and Measurement of DNA Content in Plant Cells]
This Microarray Protocol Preparation of Fluorescent DNA Probes from Human mRNA protocol describes the production of probes labeled with the fluorescent dyes, Cy3 and Cy5, following the synthesis of cDNA from human mRNA and the hybridization of the probes to DNA microarrays.