Life Sciences: When you would use a polyclonal antibody?_Antibody Technology Column_Technical FAQs_Information Center

You can choose whether to use polyclonal antibodies according to the situation:

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 potential for cross reactivity due to recognizing multiple epitopes

Affinity purification of the serum will typically be required to minimize cross reactivity

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Life Sciences: When you would use a polyclonal antibody?

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