PROTOCOLS
A tetramer assay (tetramer stain) is used to detect and quantify antigen specific T cells. The interaction between a peptide MHC complex (pMHC) and a cognate T cell receptor (TcR) is of too low affinity to be detected in flow cytometry. Multimerization of monomeric biotinylated pMHC by streptavidin (1) complexing increases the avidity of the pMHC streptavidin tetramer towards cognate TcRs to allow detection of antigen specific T cells. immunAware has three product lines for MHC class I:
- ready-to-use MHC tetramers loaded with peptide from our catalog
- custom made monomers or tetramers based on your choice of peptide-MHC combination
- Make you own tetramers with our peptide receptive MHC molecules easYmer®
We have developed dedicated staining protocols for CD4+ and CD8+ T cells to ensure highly specific staining with our Tetramers. For optimal results, please follow our MHC peptide loading protocol and tetramer staining protocols developed to obtain high peptide-MHC complex yields with the easYmer kits and subsequently stain T cells.
Read more about easYmers and Tetramers
References
(1) Altman JD. et al, Science. 1996 Oct 4;274(5284):94-6.