Hi Everyone,
PKH26-PCL dye has been used to label macrophages/phagocytes
(http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/pkh26pcl?lang=en®ion=GB)
I have been thinking about using this dye but I would like to know a bit more about the way it works.
According to the manufacturers description the dye forms aggregates and in that way the uptake is limited to phagocytes. The dye has been used extensively but I have been unable to find more information about the mechanism by which these aggregates are taken up.
Does anyone here know more about this process, or is familiar to with some publications concerning this topic ?
Thanks !
Pieter
Hi, Pieter.
PKH (inventor Paul Karl Horan) dyes consist of a fluorescent dye (fluorescent moiety) attached to long lipophilic side chains. They are used for staining the membranes in a specific condition with help of diluent provided by intercalating their chains in the lipid bilayer for general labelling the cell periphery. Since endomembrane systems are so dynamic in active cells, some of them on the periphery are gradually found on membranous organelles as time goes.
One derivative called PKH 26-PCL (phagocytic cell labelling) is used for detecting phagocytosis unlike the other derivatives under a certain condition (specific use of diluent for this dye seems to induce aggregates probably due to hydrophobic nature of PHK dye).
I guess the mechanism(s) involved in forming aggregates are unknown or in business secret (?). However, you may find a clue in the followings;
https://patents.justia.com/patent/20150044143
Fluorosomes: Fluorescent virus-like nanoparticles that represent a convenient tool to visualize receptor-ligand interactions (2013) Sensors (Basel) 13(7): 8722-8749. doi: 10.3390/s130708722
Regards.
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