ASC/TMS1 (E1E3I) Rabbit mAb recognizes endogenous levels of total ASC/TMS1 protein. This antibody can detect three known isoforms of ASC/TMS1.

Monoclonal antibody is produced by immunizing animals with a synthetic peptide corresponding to residues near the carboxy terminus of human ASC/TMS1 protein, isoform 1.

TMS1 (target of methylation-induced silencing)/ASC (apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a CARD), also referred to as PYCARD and CARD5, is a 22 kDa pro-apoptotic protein containing an N-terminal pyrin domain (PYD) and a C-terminal caspase recruitment domain (CARD) (1-2). The ASC/TMS1 gene was originally found to be aberrantly methylated and silenced in breast cancer cells (2), and has since been found to be silenced in a number of other cancers, including ovarian cancer (3), glioblastoma (4), melanoma (5), gastric cancer (6), lung cancer (7), and prostate cancer (8). Expression of ASC/TMS1 can be induced by pro-apoptotic/inflammatory stimuli (9). During apoptosis ASC/TMS1 is re-distributed from the cytosol to the mitochondria and associates with mitochondrial Bax to trigger cytochrome c release and subsequent apoptosis (10). ASC/TMS1 has also been found to be a critical component of inflammatory signaling where it associates with and activates caspase-1 in response to pro-inflammatory signals (11).