Abgent

Abgent is a San Diego biotechnology company that develops tools to profile post-translational modifications related to cellular function and disease. Abgent's antibodies cover targeting protein kinases (kinome), phosphatases, methyl and acetyl transferases, ubiquitin and SUMO, glycosylases and other protein modification enzymes.

Peer review
Abgent's was listed as a selected supplier in Nature Magazine, Antibody Technology, Drug Discovery Features and The Scientist's cell signaling feature Full list of citations.

Core business


Abgent specilizes in FMOC solid-phase synthesis of peptides using pseudoproline to improve the quality of synthetic peptides. Pseudoproline dipeptides have been shown to increase the success rate for synthesizing both long and difficult peptides. Pseudoproline dipeptides can be introduced in the same manner as other amino acid derivatives. The routine use of pseudoproline (oxazolidine) dipeptides in the FMOC solid phase pepdide sysnthesis (SPPS) of serine- and threonine-containing peptides has been shown to improve the quality and yield of crude products and helps avoid unnecessary repeat synthesis of failed sequences. Pseudoproline dipeptides have also been shown to be effective in the synthesis of intractable peptides, long peptides/small proteins, and cyclic peptides, enabling in many cases the production of peptides that are otherwise difficult to produce. The dipeptides are used by substituting a serine or threonine residue together with the preceding amino acid residue in the peptide sequence with the appropriate pseudoproline dipeptide. The native sequence is regenerated on cleavage and deprotection.

SUMOplot


Most SUMO-modified proteins contain the tetrapeptide motif B-K-x-D/E where B is a hydrophobic residue, K is the lysine conjugated to SUMO, x is any amino acid (aa), D or E is an acidic residue. Substrate specificity appears to be derived directly from Ubc9 and the respective substrate motif. SUMOplot predicts the probability for the SUMO consensus sequence (SUMO-CS) to be engaged in SUMO attachment. The SUMOplot score system is based on two criteria: 1) direct amino acid match to the SUMO-CS observed and shown to bind Ubc9, and 2) substitution of the consensus amino acid residues with amino acid residues exhibiting similar hydrophobicity. SUMOplot has been used in the past to predict Ubc9 dependent sites.