A field-wide challenge in Parkinson’s disease (PD) research is a general lack of availability for high-quality, reproducible, and readily accessible preclinical research tools. To address these challenges, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) has developed a growing resource of preclinical tools for the PD research and drug development communities that endeavors to provide researchers with easy access to rigorously validated, research-enabling preclinical tools for molecular biology studies. An important aspect of MJFF’s preclinical tools portfolio are monoclonal antibodies that target PD-relevant proteins. In collaboration with academic experts and in partnership with Abcam and BioLegend, MJFF has sponsored the custom generation and independent validation of several monoclonal antibodies targeting both total and phosphorylated PD-relevant Rab proteins. The Rab superfamily of proteins function generally in membrane trafficking, and a subset of Rab family members have been identified as key phosphorylation substrates of LRRK2 and PINK1 kinase activity. The ability to detect and visualize these proteins under endogenous conditions would provide us with the opportunity to understand the role of Rabs in PD biology and test their utility as PD-relevant biomarkers. Herein we discuss the general MJFF antibody generation strategy and provide characterization data for ongoing custom antibody development projects, as well as antibody pipeline updates and commercial launch timelines for MJFF’s cumulative Rab antibody collection. Ultimately, these MJFF-sponsored antibody projects aim to address field-wide challenges in the PD preclinical tools and reagents landscape and to overall accelerate Parkinson’s disease research.

Authors: Nicole K. Polinski1, Terina N. Martinez1, Meng-Yun Chou2, Dario R. Alessi3, Paul Davies3 Pawel Lis3, Miratul Muqit3, Peggy Taylor4, Carsten Haber5, Shalini Padmanabhan1, Marco Baptista1, Kuldip D. Dave1 .

1 The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, 2 Abcam, Inc., 3 University of Dundee, 4 BioLegend, Inc., 5 PEPperPRINT GbmH