MHC Dextramers
A new division, Immudex, has been established under Dako, and in the future MHC Dextramers will be produced by this division. The MHC Dextramers will be made by the same people and will be of the same high quality. Thus, MHC Dextramers continue to be a superior reagent for flow cytometry of specific T cells.
Immudex MHC Dextramer products are flow cytometry reagents recommended for identification, enumeration and tracing of antigen-specific T cells during the cell-mediated immune response to e.g. infections, tumors or vaccination. Immudex MHC Dextramers can also be applied in immunohistochemistry (IHC) to visualize antigen specific T cells in frozen tissue sections.
Immudex MHC Dextramers consist of a dextran backbone carrying an optimized number of peptide-loaded MHC and fluorochrome (FITC, RPE or APC) molecules. The MHC molecules are aligned as pearls on a string on the dextran backbone.
The MHC Dextramers are highly multimeric reagents that have an apparent higher T-cell receptor (TCR)-binding affinity compared with single MHCs. The MHC Dextramers expose TCRs to numerous peptide-loaded MHCs, and the apparent higher binding affinity of the MHC Dextramers is caused by an increased avidity.