BD™ Heparin Binding Plate: An Introduction to its Applications

Abstract

BD™ Heparin Binding Plate: An Introduction to its ApplicationsUntil now researchers have been constrained by the inability to immobilise heparin and heparan sulphate onto solid supports without having to first modify the molecule in some way – e.g. biotinylation or conjugation to a carrier protein. The BD™ Heparin Binding Plate (formerly EpranEx), allows researchers to simply and efficiently immobilise these molecules without modification, retaining their functional ability to interact with other biomolecules. Numerous heparin fractions and a range of heparan sulphates have been successfully bound to the plate. Heparin‐binding molecules (IL8 and LINK_TSG6) were used to demonstrate the functional activity of several heparin fractions with reproducible results (n=24). Binding capacity of the plate was determined to be 200 ng/well using 35S heparin. The BD™ Heparin Binding Plate facilitates the development of novel assays to study the wide range of biological functions that involve the participation of heparin or heparan sulphate.