Commercially available PGC-1α antibodies vary greatly in specificity and sensitivity

TL;DR

This study shows that many commercial antibodies for detecting PGC-1α protein are not reliable, with only one antibody accurately identifying the protein in mouse liver cells.

Contribution

The study reveals significant variability in the performance of PGC-1α antibodies, emphasizing the need for careful validation.

Findings

All seven antibodies detected overexpressed PGC-1α1 but only one detected endogenous PGC-1α1.

The study highlights the importance of using proper controls to avoid misidentifying non-specific bands as PGC-1α.

Abstract

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α) is an inducible transcriptional coactivator protein involved in mitochondrial biogenesis and metabolism. PGC-1α exhibits a short half-life and low abundance, rendering its detection challenging by immunoblotting. This study compared the specificity and sensitivity of seven commercially available PGC-1α antibodies towards the full-length mouse PGC-1α1 isoform, using overexpression and knockdown in primary mouse hepatocytes. While all antibodies identified overexpressed PGC-1α1, only one detected endogenous PGC-1α1. This study demonstrates wide variability in sensitivity and specificity of PGC-1α antibodies and suggests that controls should be used to differentiate PGC-1α protein from non-specific bands.

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