Polyclonal antibodies

What is a Polyclonal Antibody? A Polyclonal Antibody represents a collection of antibodies from different B cells that recognize multiple epitopes on the same antigen. Each of these individual antibodies recognizes a unique epitope that is located on that Advantages: • Inexpensive to produce. • Quick to produce. Purified antibody ready to use in under four months. • Easy to store. • Highly stable and tolerant of pH or buffer changes. • Higher overall antibody affinity against the antigen due to recognition of multiple epitopes. • In general, ability to detect multiple epitopes gives more robust detection. • Offers greater sensitivity for detecting proteins that are present in low quantities in a sample since multiple antibodies will bind to multiple epitopes on the protein. • Ideal as the capture antibody in a Sandwich ELISA. Greater ability to quickly capture the target protein. • Superior antibody affinity generally results in quicker binding to target antigen. Ideal in assays requiring quick capture of the protein such as IP or ChIP. • Significantly more robust when assaying proteins that show slight variations in individual epitopes such as denaturation, polymorphism or conformational changes. • Superior for use in detecting a native protein in multiple assay types. • Much easier to couple with antibody labels. Less likely to affect binding capability. Disadvantages: • Variability between different batches produced in different animals at different times • Higher poten...

Sponsored Content by StressMarq Biosciences Inc. Jan 28 2020 A question that often crops up is - What is the difference between monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies? Good question! Both the way in which these antibodies are produced and what they can be used for, differ greatly. Here the two types are broken down and all the relevant information about Key differences between Polyclonal and Monoclonal Antibodies. Polyclonal Monoclonal Heterogeneous population of antibodies with differing paratopes for an antigen Homogenous population of a specific antibody with one paratope Not Epitope Specific Epitope Specific Increased likelihood for cross-reactivity with similar antigens Low cross-reactivity Increased likelihood for background noise Low background noise Lot Variability Identical lots Inexpensive to develop Expensive to develop Quick to produce (approx. 3 months) Slow to produce (approx. 6 months) Many host species options Few host species options What are Monoclonal Antibodies? Monoclonal Antibodies Definition: One (mono) type of antibody that binds to a specific epitope on the target antigen makes up a monoclonal antibody. Monoclonal Antibody Production To create Healthy spleen cells would not survive indefinitely in cell culture and so this fusing process is carried out to make an immortal cell line. A hybridoma cell line is created through this process. A mono-culture of B-cells all producing the same specific antibody are created by fusing and culturing single B-cell...

By Susha Cheriyedath, M.Sc. Reviewed by Polyclonal antibodies (pAbs) are a complex mixture of several antibodies that are usually produced by different B-cell clones of an animal. These antibodies recognize and bind to many different epitopes of a single antigen and hence can form lattices with the ustas7777777 | Shutterstock How are polyclonal antibodies generated? Antigen preparation The quality and quantity of antigen used directly affects the immune response. Even small amounts of impurities will lead to antibodies reacting more to the impurity than to the desired antigen. Too little or too much antigen may cause sensitization, suppression, or other unwarranted immunomodulatory effects. Thus, the purification of the antigen is a crucial process to achieve increased antibody specificity. The antigen should be prepared under sterile conditions to make sure it is endotoxin free. The quantity of the antigen is dependent on several factors such as properties of the particular antigen, the animal species chosen, injection route, frequency of injection, and the purity level of the antigen. Animal species selection The factors that influence the choice of animal species are amount of pAb required, the phylogenetic relationship between the animal and antigen, the age of the animal, the ease of obtaining blood samples, and the application in which the pAb is used. Commonly used animal species in the laboratory are rabbits, rats, mice, guinea pigs, hamsters, goats, chicken, and s...

Polyclonal antibodies are typically produced by the inoculation of a suitable mammal, such as a mouse, rabbit, or goat. Larger mammals are often preferred as the amount of serum collected is greater. An antigen is injected into the mammal, typically over several weeks, inducing the B-lymphocytes to produce immunoglobulins (IgG) specific for the antigen. Polyclonal IgG is purified from the mammal’s serum. Our polyclonal antibodies are used in many applications including western blot, flow cytometry, ELISA, immunohistochemistry, and immunofluorescence.

• All • Primary Antibodies • Conjugated Antibodies for IF • Conjugated Antibodies for FC • Secondary Antibodies • Antibody Labeling Kits New • ELISA Kits • IHC Kits • Magnetic Cell Separation Kits • Cytokines & Growth Factors • Neutralizing/activating Antibodies • Nanobody-based Reagents • Accessory Products and Kits • Fusion Proteins Introduction Antibodies are large Y-shaped proteins called immunoglobulins which are produced by B cells as part of the adaptive immune response when encountering a foreign molecule. Due the strong affinity of an antibody to one particular sequence, an epitope (typically 4-6 amino acids in length), they are widely used in research to identify and detect target proteins of interest in a variety of different applications. Of the available antibody isotypes, IgG is most commonly used for research. To answer different research needs, there are two types of antibodies available to scientists: polyclonal and monoclonal. Polyclonal antibodies contain a heterologous mixture of IgGs against the whole antigen, whereas monoclonal antibodies are composed of a single IgG against one epitope (Figure 1.) This blog aims to give a comprehensive overview of the advantages and disadvantages of these two types of antibodies to enable the user to best choose the type most suitable for their application. Figure 1. A) Polyclonal antibodies bind to the same antigen, but different epitopes; and B) monoclonal antibodies bind to the same epitope on a target antigen. Po...