Our laboratory has developed an atlas of brain proteins which has served as a basis for ongoing studies of the CNS. Such a generalized index of rat brain proteins has allowed us to survey the major proteins visible on two- dimensional polyacrylamide gels from a variety of discrete neuroanatomical regions in the brain. The use of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, coupled with several experimental manipulations or disease states, has revealed interesting proteins in discrete regions of the brain. One such protein, PGP 9.5, was isolated from the human brain (Doron et al., 1983) (MW 26,300) and was determined to be a brain specific protein. This protein appeared to have identical coordinates as protein 51 observed in our atlas of brain proteins. Recently, a cDNA was cloned for human PGP9.5 (Day and Thompson, 1987). More recently, PGP 9.5 was determined to be ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase (UCH) Wilkinson et al., 1989). We have obtained an antiserum to UCH, in addition to the pure antigen. Western blots of two-dimensional gels has allowed us to identify protein 51 of our brain as ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase.
