The new antibodies will target phosphorylated Histone H2A.X and p53 validated, for immunohistochemistry using both whole-mount and paraffin-embedded zebrafish embryos as well as western blotting and immunohistochemistry using zebrafish tissues respectively.
Phosphorylated histone H2A.X is useful as an early marker of double-strand breaks and can be used to evaluate the extent of DSB repair.
The p53 antibody is useful in studies involving DNA damage and apoptotic mechanisms as well as tumorigenesis.
Zebrafish genome comprises almost all genes involved in the different DNA repair pathways and the DNA damage can easily be introduced in the organism’s embryos by means of UV or ionizing irradiation.
The wide use of zebrafish as model organism in DNA repair studies is due to shRNA- or morpholino-based techniques that are well established in the zebrafish field.
The techniques help in the study of the recognizing individual DNA damage and repair factors.