The activity of chymopapain, neuraminidase and the glycoprotease from
Pasteurella haemolytica (from Prof Mellors group, University of Guelph now
marketed by Cedarlane) on the CD34 antigen are summarised in the CD34 cluster
report by Greaves et al in Leucocyte typing V, volume 1, pg840 1995. Briefly
all of these enzyme treatments remove some epitopes of CD34, whether this is
"gentle" or not I'm not sure. This does mean however that you need to
consider which antibody clone you use since certain clones (Class III)
will resist treatment with these enzymes.
As far as Dynal's detachabead goes my understanding is that it works well
with certain antibody clones (I think Dynal use BI3C5 on the beads) but not
others, eg we could not get QBend10 to detach - may be related to binding
affinity.
Ian Titley
Leukaemia Research Fund Centre
at the Institute of Cancer Research
London UK