Ion indicators |
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| Ion and pH indicators are fluorescent compounds that undergo shifts in fluorescence spectra in response to changes in ion concentrations. Many ion indicators are available as membrane-permeable AM ester derivitaves, which are hydrolyzed by cytoplasmic esterase enzymes to generate functional free acid indicator dyes. |
Choose Your Application
pH indicators
Biotium offers a selection of pH indicators commonly used in biochemical and cellular analyses, including derivaties of BCECF, carboxyfluorescein and Flubi-2. These products can be used as pH indicators or cell tracers.
Calcium indicator and related reagents
Calcium is an important intracellular messenger ion that regulates numerous cellular processes. Ratiometric fluorescent calcium indicator dyes are widely used to monitor changes in cytoplasmic calcium levels. Biotium offers a number of calcium indicators, including Fura-2, Indo-1, Fluo-3 and Rhod-2. These products are available both as membrane-impermeant salts and membrane-permeant AM ester forms. Biotium's proprietary manufacturing methods for these difficult-to-make compounds allow us to provide the highest quality calcium indicator dyes available. We also provide calcium calibration kits for convenient calibration of fluorescent calcium indicators.
Magnesium indicator and related reagents
Biotium offers several ion indicators including Mag-Fura-2 derivaties, which are fluorescent magnesium indicators .
Zinc indicators
Zinc is reported to be involved in the suppression of apoptosis and to play key roles in many neural activities. Biotium offers the UV-excitable blue fluorescent zinc indicator Zinquin in ethyl ester and free acid forms.
Chloride indicators
Biotium's chloride indicators include SPQ and MQAE. The fluorescence of SPQ is specifically quenched by chloride via random collision. Thus, the chloride concentration is measured by monitoring the degree of fluorescence decrease. MQAE has greater sensitivity to chloride and higher fluorescence quantum yield than SPQ. The ester group of MQAE may slowly hydrolyze inside cells, resulting in a change in its fluorescence response.
Other ion indicators
Biotium offers heavy metal chelators like TPEN, which is useful to identify effects of heavy metals on fluorescent indicators of calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium. Biotium also offers several BAPTA chelators with different calcium dissociation constants.