Enzyme substrates  

Biotium offers a wide selection of firefly and renilla luciferase substrates including luciferin and coelenterazine derivatives with industry-leading quality. Our proprietary manufacturing and packaging techniques ensure that our substrate products are highly pure. In addition, we offer convenient kits to perform firefly, renilla and dual luciferase reporter assays with great sensitivity and linearity.

The Lac Z gene encoding the enzyme beta-galactosidase is used widely as a reporter gene in bacteria, yeast, and animal experimental models. Because the enzyme is highly specific and stable, avidin and antibody beta-galaxtosidase conjugates are useful detection reagents for ELISA applications. Biotium offers a series of chromogenic beta-galactosidase substrates that produce highly colored precipitates. In addition, we offer the fluorogenic beta-galactosidase substrate FDG.

Detection of beta-glucuronidase is widely used to identify E. coli bacteria contamination in food and water. The enzyme which is encoded by the GUS gene, is also frequently used as reporter in plants. Biotium offers three chromogenic flucuronidase substrates, each of which yields a blue-, red- and pink- colored precipitating product. Biotium also offers the popular fluorogenic beta-glucuronidase substrate MUG for ultra sensitive-detection.

Biotium offers many traditional fluorogenic peptidase substrates based on three fluorescent dyes: rhodamine 110 (R110), 7-amino-4-trifluoromethycoumarin (AFC) and 7-amino-4-mehylcoumarin (AMC or MCA). Before enzymatic hydrolysis, the substrates have no fluroescence or very weak fluorescence. Upon hydrolysis, the dye is released, increasing the fluorescence. In addition, Biotium offers a novel caspase-3 substrate, DEVD-NucView 488, which is suitable for detecting caspase-3 activity in live cells. The substrate enters into dying cells rapidly, where it is cleaved by caspases to release a DNA-binding dye, which stains the nucleus with green fluorescence. The unique features of NucView 488 substrate make it compatible with flow cytometry, microscopy and microplate reader analyses.

Biotium offers several peroxidase substrates including ABTS, which is widely used for ELISA applications, and 10-acetyl-3,7-dihydroxyphenoxazine (Amplex Red) which is regarded as the best fluorogenic substrate for peroxidase due to its high specificity and stability.

Phosphatase substrates

Biotium offers a number of popular chromogenic and fluorogenic substrates for phosphatases including alkaline phosphatase and protein tyrosine phosphatase. Chromogenic substrates include BCIP reagents and kits, and fluorogenic phosphatase substrates include FDP, MUP, and NBT derivatives.

Biotium's reductase substrates include MTT, Resazurin (Alamar Blue) and XTT. These commonly used chromogenic and fluorogenic substrates are used to assay cellular reductive activity as a measure of cell viability, proliferation or cytotoxicity. Biotium also offers convenient bioassay kits based on these substrates for life science research.

In addition to common substrates such as those for peptidases and redox enzymes, Biotium offers a selection of other enzymes substrates including X-beta-D-cellobioside for assessing beta-cellobiosidase activity, and D-luciferin methyl ether for microsomal dealkylase/cytochrome P450.