| The major difference between polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies is the number of epitopes these antibodies recognize. An epitope can be linear or confirmational, and consist of 3-15 amino acids. Polyclonal antibodies recognize a pool of epitopes of different lengths, while monoclonal antibodies only recognize one single epitope. This fact often makes polyclonal antibodies more versatile, when it comes to usage in different applications. However, this may also contribute to increased background signal, which in many cases can be decreased by proper optimization. When it comes to stability, the loss of activity for polyclonal antibodies is often observed as a gradual decline, while the process is rather abrupt in the case of monoclonal antibodies. |  |
Technical blog
Latest
How to remove cross-reactivity to Rubisco of a primary antibody?2024-09-24 Which is an optimal buffer for protein extraction?
2024-07-29 Weak target protein bands and strong background at a top of a gel, what can be a reason for that?
2024-06-19 Why do some proteins always show as double bands on Western blot?
2024-05-30 How to further denature proteins transferred to PVDF membrane?
2024-05-22 Which isotype is a rabbit polyclonal antibody?
2024-05-06 Why bands on the blot are not distinct from each other?
2024-05-02 What parameters should be consider when transferring HMW proteins?
2024-03-01 Why some antibodies have a broad species reactivity, while the others do not?
2024-02-20 Are directly conjugated primary antibodies always the best choice?
2023-12-28
Archive
- September - 2024
- July - 2024
- June - 2024
- May - 2024
- March - 2024
- February - 2024
- December - 2023
- November - 2023
- September - 2023
- July - 2023
- May - 2023
- March - 2023
- January - 2023
- December - 2022
- November - 2022
- October - 2022
- September - 2022
- August - 2022
- June - 2022
- May - 2022
- March - 2022
- February - 2022
- January - 2022
- November - 2021
- October - 2021
- August - 2021
- June - 2021
- May - 2021
- April - 2021
- March - 2021
- February - 2021
- January - 2021
- December - 2020
- November - 2020
- October - 2020
- September - 2020
- August - 2020
- July - 2020
- June - 2020
- May - 2020
- April - 2020
- March - 2020
- January - 2020
- November - 2019
- October - 2019
- March - 2019
- April - 2017
- February - 2017
- May - 2016
- February - 2014
- September - 2013
- December - 2010