The Demyelinating Disease Targets Antibody Sampler Kit provides an economical means of detecting the protein components of myelin sheath. The kit includes enough antibodies to perform two western blot experiments with each primary antibody.

Myelin is the insulating material surrounding neuronal axons. The function of myelin is to promote action potential propagation down the axon to the axon terminal. Myelin is formed in the central nervous system (CNS) by specialized glial cells called oligodendrocytes and by Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system (PNS). Oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells make concentric rings, called the myelin sheath, around the axon at regular intervals. These intervals, called nodes of ranvier, are enriched in structural proteins and ion channels, which help promote action potential propagation. Several proteins are enriched in the myelin sheath and likely help mediate the tight multi-layered membranes that make up the sheath. These proteins include myelin basic protein (MBP, [1]), myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG, [2]), myelin proteolipid protein (PLP1, [3]) and  myelin-oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG, [4]). Contactin-associated protein (Caspr) 1 & 2 (5,6) and neurofascin 155 & 186 (7,8) are nodes of ranvier-associated proteins that may play roles in generating the regular intervals of myelin along the axon. Expression of several of these proteins are altered in demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Additionally, mislocalization and/or altered expression of these proteins, compared to the axonal protein β3-tubulin, may represent altered myelin function.