GFAP

Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is the 10nm or intermediate filament protein found specifically in astrocytic cells in the central nervous system.

 GFAP is strongly and specifically expressed in astrocytes and certain other astroglia in the central nervous system, in satellite cells in peripheral ganglia, and in non-myelinating Schwann cells in peripheral nerves. In many damage and disease states GFAP expression is heavily upregulated in astrocytes. In addition neural stem cells frequently strongly express GFAP. Antibodies to GFAP are therefore very useful as markers of astrocytic cells and neural stem cells.

Image of GFAP (red) staining of astrocytes in primary culture (DAPI, blue).

GFAP: Customer Publications

Preparation Notes: Made with Recombinant GFAP expressed in bacteria and highly purified. Subsequent boosts were performed with GFAP purified from a Triton X-100 extract of myelin associated material from bovine spinal cord, following an axonal flotation procedure (3). The GFAP was further purified by centrifugation and ion exchange chromatography in 6m urea on DEAE cellulose.

Image: Western blot of whole rat cerebellum homogenate stained with CPCA-GFAP, at dilution of 1:100,000. A prominent band running with an apparent SDS-PAGE molecular weight of ~50kDa corresponds to rodent GFAP. A lower band at ~45kDa is derived from the GFAP molecule.