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Antibody FAQs

FAQs (Frequently asked questions) about our antibody products to answer customers commonly frequently asked technical questions.

  1. What products or services do you provide?
  2. We offer all kinds of antibody products including polyclonal antibodies, monoclonal antibodies, tag/control antibodies, secondary antibodies, recombinant antibodies, small molecules antibodies, ChIP-grade antibodies and antibody pairs. Our antibody-related services include custom recombinant antibody production, custom monoclonal antibody production, custom polyclonal antibody production and custom modified antibody production.

  3. Why should we choose your antibodies?
  4. Creative Biolabs is a leader in the field of antibody development committed to developing various antibodies to meet every customer all over the world. Our antibodies are specific to a variety of species and can be used in multiple applications. Furthermore, we develop thousands of new antibody products every year. We have first-class technology platforms and professional technical team to meet high quality antibody production. We are confident to offer you the best antibodies to meet your requirements.

  5. How do you make mass production of monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies?
  6. Generally, monoclonal antibodies are produced using in vivo ascites. For polyclonal antibodies, we use serum production. Additionally, we also use phage display technology to produce monoclonal antibodies.

  7. What is the difference between monoclonal antibodies and polyclonal antibodies?
  8. Monoclonal antibodies are produced by identical immune cells that are clones of a specific parent cell. Monoclonal antibodies can only recognize the same antigen and epitope. Polyclonal antibodies are produced by different immune cells that have affinity for different epitopes of the same antigen. Therefore, monoclonal antibodies are much more specific and with less background noise than polyclonal antibodies. However, monoclonal antibodies are also usually more expensive to produce, less robust and are very sensitive to small changes in the antigen compared with polyclonal antibodies.

  9. What is the relationship between primary antibody and secondary antibody? How can I select a suitable secondary antibody for my experiment?
  10. Primary antibody is used to recognize and bind to the target antigen, while the secondary antibody is used to target the primary antibody and often is labeled with an enzyme or dye that can be amplified for detection. Selecting a suitable secondary antibody depends on the following elements:

    • The host species. For example, if the primary antibody is a mouse monoclonal, the secondary antibody should be an anti-mouse Ab.
    • The characteristics of the primary antibody.
    • For different applications, such as WB, IHC, ELISA.
  11. What is the recommended concentration to use the antibody in western blot and ELISA analysis?
  12. Our antibodies are recommended to use in WB with a dilution range of 1:500-1:2000. However, for ELISA assay, the optimal dilution should be determined by actual experiment and based on customer's assay platform and system.

  13. Why is the actual Western blot band size different from the predicted?
  14. Western blotting is a technique that separates proteins based on different protein size. However, the migration of proteins can be affected by many factors, which may cause the result that the actual band size observed may differ from that predicted. Generally, influence factors include:

    • Post-translational modification, such as phosphorylation, glycosylation can increases the size of the protein.
    • Post-translation cleavage. Many proteins are produced as pro-proteins and then cleaved to become the active form, such as the pro-caspases.
    • Splice variants. Alternative splicing often can create different sized proteins produced from the same gene.
    • Relative charge. Different composition of amino acids (charged or non-charged).
    • Multimers. Such as the dimerisation of a protein. This is usually prevented by reducing conditions.
  15. What immunogens are used in developing your antibodies? Can you list the immunogen sequence of your antibody?
  16. Our immunogens include recombinant protein, native protein, peptide and other antigens. For the immunogen sequence, please refer to the product information on our website or product data sheet. Besides, you also can contact our technical support to request this information you needed.

  17. What is the common form of your antibodies?
  18. Liquid form.

  19. Which buffer is used to store antibodies?
  20. Commonly, the store buffer of our antibodies contains 0.01M PBS (pH 7.4) with 50% glycerol. Sometimes other form buffers are also used in antibody storage based on different requirements. Detailed information can be found on our website or product data sheet.

  21. What is the molecular weight of the antibody?
  22. Most of our antibodies are IgG isotype with a molecular weight of approximately 150 kDa.

For more information, please contact us.

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