Hah!

Well, I redid the experiment and got cleaner results. At first I was going to mess around with the amount of protein I loaded but as I thought about it, I got the distinct impression that the only thing I should change was the concentration of blocking buffer - which is something I never do. Blocking buffer is usually a milk or albumin solution that helps to reduce non-specific antibody binding on the Western blot. I have always used a 5% solution. Yesterday, as I was planning the experiment, I got the distinct impression to use a 10% solution. I did and my results today are easily understandable and interesting. I found that pERK signalling is increased in vestibular schwannomas while not in control tissue. Although we expected this, the results are gratifying none the less. However, I didn't see any differences between the two tissues with regard to pAKT signalling. We didn't expect this. So what does this mean? At first glance, it simply means that growth of schwannomas is regulated through the ras-raf-MEK-ERK signalling pathway and not so much through PI3 Kinase. So why is this important? Well, the more specific a response is within a cell, the easier it is to control abnormal behavior. Perhaps someday this knowledge will lead to more effective treatment options for patients with this type of tumor.