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Digoxigenin

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Formula
  
C23H34O5

Molar mass
  
390.51 g/mol

Digoxigenin httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

How to pronounce digoxigenin


Digoxigenin (DIG) is a steroid found exclusively in the flowers and leaves of the plants Digitalis purpurea, Digitalis orientalis and Digitalis lanata (foxgloves), where it is attached to sugars, to form the glycosides (e.g. Lanatoside C).

Contents

Medical vocabulary what does digoxigenin mean


Use in biotechnology

Digoxigenin is a hapten, a small molecule with high antigenicity, that is used in many molecular biology applications similarly to other popular haptens such as 2,4-Dinitrophenol, biotin, and fluorescein. Typically, digoxigenin is introduced chemically (conjugation) into biomolecules (proteins, nucleic acids) to be detected in further assays. Anti-digoxigenin antibodies with high affinities and specificity, are used in a variety of biological immuno-assays (e.g. ELISA). The antibodies are labeled with dyes, enzymes or fluorescence, directly or secondarily, for visualization and detection.

Digoxigenin is thus an all-purpose immuno-tag, and in particular a standard immunohistochemical marker for in situ hybridization. In this case it is conjugated to a single species of RNA nucleotide triphosphate (typically uridine), which is then incorporated into RNA (a "riboprobe") as it is synthesized by the cellular machinery.

It allows to make :

  • sensitive non-radioactive in situ hybridization probes to detect nucleic acids in plants, able to detect 1 µg of plasmid DNA.
  • peptide-DIG conjugates, i.e. bradykinin assay by very sensitive chemiluminescence immunoassays.
  • fluorescent and DIG-labeled tracers for competitive immunoassays, i.e. to limit detect digoxin, a drug used to cure cardiac arrhythmia, down to 0.2 ng mL−1.
  • Digoxigenin may be conjugated to sugars to study glycosylation events, even in biological systems.

    • References

    Digoxigenin Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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