Androgen Receptor Antibody Sampler Kit

The Androgen Receptor Antibody Sampler Kit provides an economical means of detecting full-length Androgen Receptor and AR-V7 isoforms. The kit includes enough antibody to perform two western blot experiments with each primary antibody.

Androgen receptor (AR), a zinc finger transcription factor belonging to the nuclear receptor superfamily, is activated by phosphorylation and dimerization upon ligand binding (1). This promotes nuclear localization and binding of AR to androgen response elements in androgen target genes. Research studies have shown that AR plays a crucial role in several stages of male development and the progression of prostate cancer (2,3).

The AR3 or AR-V7 isoform, which lacks the typical ligand binding domain, is created through the alternative splicing of cryptic exons (4-5). AR-V7 is frequently expressed in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and while dependent on the activity of the full-length androgen receptor (AR-FL), AR-V7 can activate a completely distinct transcriptional program (6-8). While enzalutamide and abiraterone have been beneficial in treating CRPC through the ligand binding domain of AR-FL, resistance in patients has been shown to be associated with AR-V7 detection in circulating tumor cells (9-12). Studies probing into mechanisms of overcoming this resistance are currently being explored and may help in stratifying patient populations for more personalized therapies (13-15).