What are the differences between TRAIL, KillerTRAIL™ and SuperKillerTRAIL™?

To induce apoptosis, TRAIL needs to form multimers, showing increasing activity with increasing multimerization levels.  Multimerization of TRAIL can be achieved, e.g., by using Enzo Life Sciences’ TRAIL, Soluble (human) (recombinant) (Prod. No. ALX-522-003) plus the Enhancer for Ligands (Prod. No. ALX-804-034), both of which are provided with the TRAIL, soluble (human) (recombinant) set, (Prod. No. ALX-850-018).

In addition, a more convenient method is provided with Enzo Life Sciences’ KillerTRAIL™ or SuperKillerTRAIL™ products which form multimers, and do not require additional cross-linking agents.

KillerTRAIL™, in comparison with normal TRAIL, contains a proprietary linker peptide which allows its trimerization in solution.  SuperKillerTRAIL™ contains a linker peptide, but this one also stabilizes the active multimeric conformation by an inserted mutation allowing an intermolecular disulfide bridge.  By this mechanism, a high degree of ligand cross-linking and multimerization is achieved rendering SuperKillerTRAIL™ the most powerful TRAIL variant for inducing apoptosis.