Antibodies

From determing the degree to which a person is allergic to a given allergen to solving murder cases, antibodies have a wide range of applications in the laboratory. Due to their high degree of specificity, antibodies are used in some of the most specific laboratory techniques such as the western blot and ELISA. Did you know that blood type (A, B, AB, O) is determined by using antibodies against the proteins and molecules found on the surface of red blood cells? Primary antibodies are used to make the initial contact with the protein of interest and secondary antibodies, also known as anti antibodies, bind to the primary antibodies. An anti antibody is usually conjugated to a fluorophore or an enzyme that will induce a color change in solution once a specifc substrate is added. Companies like Promega supply antibodies such as Igg antibodies conjugated to horseradish peroxidase and Anti-B-Galactosidase. Performing laboratory techniques that involve antibodies has become a lot easier thanks to immunoassay kits that include all supplies and reagents needed for the mulit-step reaction.