Streptamer Magnetic Beads

Features & Benefits

• Isolate fully functional antigen-specific T-cells
• Reversible, antigen-specific staining
• Mild and rapid dissociation using biotin
• Fluorescent or magnetic sorting

Description

The Streptamer technology is a novel method to isolate and characterize functional antigen-specific T-cells. Streptamers enable for the first time a reversible, antigen-specific staining of T-cells, leaving the isolated T-cells phenotypically and functionally indistinguishable from untreated cells.

The Streptamer approach is based on a reversible staining that utilizes IBA's core Strep-tag technology. MHC/peptide complexes fused with a Strep-tag sequence are generated and multimerized in the presence of Strep-Tactin. This Streptamer complex is ideally suited to bind and isolate cognate T-cells by fluorescent (FACS) or magnetic cell sorting. A key aspect of the Streptamer approach is the ability to rapidly remove the staining reagent after the isolation step by disassembly of the MHC/Strep-Tactin multimer in the presence of low concentrations of d-biotin. Subsequently, the weakly binding monovalent MHCs dissociate spontaneously and rapidly from the T-cell surface.