Common misconceptions about antibodies - I

I have purchased several antibodies from the same company, and they all worked on my species. Therefore the next one should work too!

Each antibody is made to a different protein and thus recognizes different epitopes. Therefore, even if many antibodies purchased from a given company worked well for your species, this does not guarantee that the next antibody will. There needs to be a match of the sequence the antibody is binding to in the sequence of the protein which is aimed to be detected. Based on our experience, at least a 70 % match in linear sequence needs to be confirmed. Many antibodies are made to short, 10 to 15 amino acids long peptides. Overall target protein conservation between species will not be relevant in such a case if there is no match in the exact sequence used to elicit the given antibody.

Therefore, before purchasing an antibody which has not been used on a given species or application, conservation of the antigen used to elicit such antibody should be confirmed.

Send your question to: [email protected] and we will help to check sequence conservation and confirm your choice for the best outcome of your experiments.

Common misconceptions about antibodies - I

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