Integration of Orbigen Products

Allele Biotech has been marketing products previously offered by Orbigen since July of 2008. In the process, Allele Biotech has transferred the majority of the Orbigen products to its own product lines, and left out a few that were no longer in demand, under proper license, or in some cases replaced with newer and better versions.

The biggest class of Orbigen products now under the Allele Biotech brand name are the polyclonal antibodies such as anti-EDG1 EDG2… EDG8 (catalogue numbers: PABs 10626, 10619, 10628, 10630, 10496, 1063), anti-BMRPs (catalogue numbers: PABs 10536, 10537, 10538). Other popular polyclonal antibodies from Orbigen include PAB-10983, PAB-10216, PAB-10683, PAB-11651, PAB-11141, PAB-10241, PAB-10469, PAB-10778, PAB-11248, PAB-11665, PAB-10563, PAB-10774. Orbigen antibodies have been tested in hundreds to thousands of labs over more than ten years.

One key product group developed by Orbigen is the baculovirus system, which includes the viral Sapphire genomic DNA and pOrb transfer vector plasmid for efficient packaging. We have further developed the pOrb vector into a bicistronic vector for dual expression or mammalian infections.

Retrovirus packaging cells, on the other hand, have been obtained from non-Orbigen sources and are now called Phoenix 2 as products under a new product line, the Gryphon retrovirus system. These cells have similar functions but were built by different researchers and further selected at Allele Biotech. Like all packaging cells we have experience with, these cells do not attach well after a freeze/thaw cycle. It is absolutely essential to wash away DMSO and better seed them in high quality, attachment enhancing dishes such as our EcoCulture plates.

Products previously under the Orbigen brand name are now included in Allele Biotech’s brand new shopcart (now beta-testing at shop.allelebiotech.com). We hope the new functionalities at the new site combined with the relevant knowledge and information you used to enjoy at our current allelebiotech.com site will provide you with an improved shopping experience.

New Product of the Week 110810-111410:

Retroviral vector with drug resistance new version, ABP-PVL-IRES10P.

Promotion of the Week 110810-111410:

GFP-Trap beads-immobilized camelid antibody for GFP fusion pull down. 15% off ACT-CM-GFA0050, any number of vials ordered this week. Use code SP110810.

Tags: Allele Biotech Orbigen merge, anti-BMRP, anti-EDG, biocarta antibodies, Orbigen, Orbigen antibodies, PAB-10, PAB-11, polyclonal antibodies

Introducing Baculo Virus Expression System (BVES) with a Strong IRES

Internal ribosome entry site (IRES) can be used to initiate translation of a second open reading frame (ORF) of an mRNA, providing the benefits of: 1) avoiding promoter competition in a dual promoter situation; 2) having controlled ratio of expression of two proteins; 3) placing a dominant selection pressure on the entire bicistronic mRNA and hence the maintenance of the transgene when a selection marker is placed as the second ORF.

IRES elements are located mainly in RNA viruses except certain mammalian and insect mRNA molecules. Only one DNA virus has so far been found to contain an IRES, the while spot syndrome virus (WSSV) of marine shrimp. This IRES, compared to a very few other choices known to function in insect cells such as the IRES from Rhopalosiphum padi virus (RhPV), has strong translation initiation activity (~98-99% in reference to cap-dependent initiation), insect cell specificity, and encompasses only 180 base pairs.

Allele Biotech, with its acquisition of Orbigen, is a major provider of BVES products and services with more than 10 years of experience. Allele’s featured New Products of the Week* this week are WSSV IRES containing baculovirus vectors, the sIRES (for Strong IRES from Shrimp virus) series plasmids. Currently one version is pOrb-MCS-sIRES-VSVG for pseudotyping baculoviruses (within the Emerald Baculovirus for Mammalian Expression series), with pOrb-mWasabi-sIRES-VSVG as a fluorescent protein control; the other is pOrb-MCS-sIRES-MCS for cloning a custom second cDNA. New versions in the future will include IRES driven mWasabi and other commonly used selection markers.

With a current research project for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) involving development of modified BVES and mammalian protein expression and purification systems, Allele Biotech expects this product line to continue its expansion at a fast pace.

* Allele Biotech announces at least one new product every Wednesday through news release at AlleleNews or Allele Blog and social networks.

Tags: baculo, baculovirus, BVES, insect cells, IRES, NCI, NIH, Orbigen, ORF, protein expression, translation initiation