Best antibodies to label different neuronal populations

Trying to find validated antibodies for marking inhibitory and excitatory neuronal populations in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. Any ideas?

1 Like

The problem with antibodies for labeling neurons is that the best markers are not well expressed in neuronal somata.

So for example, the best excitatory marker is Slc17a6 (VGLUT2). Antibodies to VGLUT2 mark terminals, however. Similarly, for inhibitory neurons, GAD1/2 or VGAT are best, but they too are not expressed in the soma.

So, you have two choices.
Either you do in situ hybridization. See this post for an example of VGAT (pan-inhibitory)

ISH is great but a pain in the butt to do traditionally, or expensive with RNAscope.

Your other option is to use transcription factor antibodies. In particular:

Pax2 = Inhibitory. This one works (1:500).

For excitatory in the dorsal horn, TLX3 is used. Unfortunately, the widely used TLX3 antibody is custom from Carmen Birchmaeir’s lab in Germany. I don’t know about commericial.

I made a panel like this here:

Here is a recent paper doing the same:

Good luck!

You might also find this useful: