Phospho-Tau, Thermo Fischer Scientific, 701530

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)

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.

In the peptide array this antibody (1:500) detected a Tau peptide phosphorylated at T181, but also peptides phosphorylated at T175 or S191. Western blotting of mouse lysates resulted in a strong signal with a weak non-specific background.

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