Antibody Portfolio
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Product Management Team
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Antibodies are an essential component in any researcher’s toolkit for localising, purifying and quantifying proteins due to their high specificity and selectivity for antigens.
CancerTools.org offers a wide range of monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, as well as a growing offering of recombinant antibodies in various research areas, including cancer, immunology, epigenetics, virology, and many others. With an extensive portfolio of cancer-related antibodies, we are able to support research in areas including apoptosis, metabolism, stem cells, tumour immunology, metastasis, and tumour microenvironment.
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Monoclonal |
> 1,900 antibodies |
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Polyclonal |
> 200 antibodies |
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Recombinant |
> 120 antibodies |
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Cancer-related |
> 650 antibodies |
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Tag |
Including antibodies against HA, TACE, His6, and biotin |
Polyclonal, monoclonal and recombinant antibodies
Antibodies are often categorised according to their method of production into monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies.
Polyclonal antibodies are a heterogeneous mixture of antibodies directed against various epitopes on the same antigen, with different specificities and affinities. This constitute an advantage in certain applications, such as detection with secondary antibodies. Indeed, conjugated polyclonal antibodies are usually preferred for secondary detection, as the signal amplification can increase the sensitivity of the assay. Polyclonal antibodies are relatively quick, inexpensive and easy to produce in comparison to monoclonal antibodies. On the other hand, monoclonal antibodies bind a single epitope on the same antigen, ensuring identical specificity and affinity of all antibodies. This is an often-sought-after feature when selecting a primary antibody, as detection can be more reproducible across different experiments.
Another approach to classify monoclonal antibodies is to consider whether they were produced using conventional or recombinant methods. A recombinant antibody is a type of monoclonal antibody where the sequence has been identified and then produced synthetically. It is produced with a phage display method, which guarantees batch to batch consistency.
Antibodies for uncommon species
Non-mammalian vertebrate models, such as zebrafish, and other non-traditional models have experienced an increasing popularity in cancer research. Offering relevant antibody reagents that scientists can use to study cancer in these animal models is important to us to continue accelerating cancer discoveries.
Reactivity of CancerTools.org’s antibodies does not only include common mammalian species such as human, mouse, rat, and rabbit, we also offer antibodies that are reactive to vertebrates such as frog, zebrafish, and other fish species. Antibodies directed against invertebrates are also available such as fly, as well as antibodies against microorganisms (yeast, bacteria) and viruses.
Antibody FAQs
1. What is the difference between target species reactivity and antibody host species?
While antibody host species indicates the species that produced the antibody, the species reactivity refers to the ability of an antibody to react with a target protein from defined species. An antibody raised against a certain human antigen will bind to the human homolog and not homologs of the same protein from other species. Some antibodies can instead detect a homologous epitope from multiple species. This is referred to as species cross-reactivity and often occurs when immunoglobulins from different species share conserved sequences and similar quaternary structure. It is crucial to select an antibody with the appropriate species reactivity for the experimental model involved. For example, if using a mouse cell line, you will need an antibody with mouse species reactivity, while if using a mouse cell line overexpressing a human target protein, an antibody with human reactivity which does not react to the mouse homolog is recommended.
2. Can I use the antibody in an application it is not validated in?
Using an antibody in an application that was not validated might not generate the desired results due to sample preparation potentially affecting epitope structure or availability, or due to binding conditions potentially affecting the strength of the antibody-antigen interaction. The experimental design and protocol used for the antibody’s validation experiments are crucial, including the cell type used, treatments (if applicable), positive and negative controls, and sample processing. Nevertheless, validation in your experimental conditions remains the most important factor when checking validity of the antibody.
3. How is a polyclonal antibody produced?
An animal is immunised with the target such as a protein. Blood is taken from the animal once it has had time to seroconvert, meaning the animal has produced an immune response specific to the target and antibodies against the target can be detected in its blood. The harvested blood is allowed to clot at room temperature for 15 - 30 minutes, and then centrifuged, for example at 2,000 x g for 10 minutes. The serum contains a mixture of antibodies specific to the target, non-specific antibodies and other non-immunoglobulin proteins such as albumin. This is known as 'whole', 'crude' or 'unpurified' serum and is one form of a polyclonal antibody preparation. Crude serum can be used for some applications, however, enrichment of the antibody component is often required for better performance in applications. This enrichment can be done using a number of antibody purification methods based on selecting antibodies by their size or affinity purification. Affinity purification is done by selecting antibodies based on their immunoglobulin class, for example IgG, using proteins that specifically bind to this class of antibody, this is known as 'class-specific affinity' purification. Alternatively, 'antigen-affinity' purification is done by incubating the serum with immobilised antigen, then washing, at this point only antigen specific antibodies are retained and these can be eluted off to produce a highly antigen specific polyclonal preparation.
What if I can’t find the antibody I am looking for?
At CancerTools.org we are always searching for the most novel targets to expand our antibody offering. If you developed a novel antibody in your lab, find out how you can make it available to the scientific community here:
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Antibodies