Tau-4R, merckmillipore, 05-804

We have used this antibody for IHC staining of 4% PFA perfused mouse brain tissue (vibratome sections). The first batch of the antibody worked okay, but the second and third batch didn’t give good results.

This antibody was included in a study testing 49 commercial available Tau antibodies including both pan-Tau antibodies and antibodies specifically recognizing Tau with post-translational modifications (PTM).

The antibodies were tested by peptide array to assess PTM specificity and by immuno-blotting of mouse brain lysates obtained from hTg-Tau (expressing all six human isoforms of Tau) and Tau knock out mice to test Tau specificity. A subset of 35 antibodies was subsequently tested by immunofluorescence staining of human iPSC derived neurons (see reference below for further details)

WB: 1/1000, Very good – strong signal for tau, no non-specific signal

The study was published in Ercan et al. Molecular Neurodegeneration (2017) 12:87 “A validated antibody panel for the characterization of tau post-translational modifications” and demonstrates that commercially available antibodies show a significant lack of specificity. In particular, PTM-specific antibodies very often recognize non-modified version of Tau.

(https://molecularneurodegeneration.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13024-017-0229-1)