Characterization of tools to detect and enrich human and mouse O-GlcNAcase

O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) is an essential regulatory post-translational modification of thousands of nuclear, cytoplasmic, and mitochondrial proteins. O-GlcNAc is dynamically added and removed from proteins by the O-GlcNAc transferase and the O-GlcNAcase (OGA), respectively. Dysregulation of O-GlcNAc-cycling is implicated in the etiology of numerous diseases including tumorigenesis, metabolic dysfunction, and neurodegeneration. To facilitate studies focused on the role of O-GlcNAc and OGA in disease, we sought to identify commercially available antibodies that enable the enrichment of full-length OGA from lysates of mouse and human origin. Here, we report that antibodies from Abcam and Bethyl Laboratories can be used to immunoprecipitate OGA to near-saturation from human and mouse cell lysates. However, Western blotting analysis indicates that both antibodies, as well as three non-commercially available antibodies (345, 346, 352), detect full-length OGA and numerous cross-reacting proteins. These non-specific signals migrate similarly to full-length OGA and are detected robustly, suggesting that the use of appropriate controls is essential to avoid the misidentification of OGA.