Saturation Binding Experiment

The following report investigates the analytical method that are used in the determination of the binding properties of 3H–MPPF in a rat hippocampus. The method used in the following report is saturation binding. The report also examines the data interpretation of the results that are obtained and compares the old technique of Scathard plots to the new analysis that may be conducted on graph pad prism. The saturation binding experiment is based on the law of mass action and therefore it is important to know the ideas upon which this model works. The following are the principle foundation in the law of mass action.

I. Binding occurs because of the ligand having the correct orientation to the bind to the receptor in the presence of sufficient

It is important to note that although CPM is a measurement of radiation it is not related to the radiation strength. Rather than record the amount of radiation that is being emitted, CPM involved tithe recording of detection events and is used for the measurement of the amount of particles that are present. DPM is the number of atoms present in a defined quantity of radioactive material that decays over a period of none minute l. It is important to note that is the number of particles that have in fact decayed and not the amount of atoms that have been measures as decayed. The main difference between CPM and DPM is within efficiency of the measures. CPM has higher efficiency as it provides an exact value of the amount of atoms that have actually decayed, compared to DPM, which simply measures the amount of atoms that have decayed in one

Although radioligands bind to receptors of interest during an assay, the ligand may also bind to a site within the tissue that is if no particular interest. This us referred to as nonspecific binding. It may result from several phenomena such as the following.

• The radioligands may associate with the tissue membrane, this hypothesis has been investigated and evidence has showed that although the molecular details are unclear it is known that nonspecific binding results from the charge if the ligand and its hydrophobicity.

• It has also been identified that nonspecific binding also results from the ligand binding to other receptors, transporters or any kind of protein that is not of interest in the study.

• Non specific binding may also result from binding to the filters which ate used in the separation of bound and free ligand.

How important is the choice of agent used to define nonspecific