Get to Know Polyclonal Antibodies and Monoclonal Antibody

From the view of antibody clonality. Antibodies have two categories: Polyclonal Antibodies and Monoclonal Antibodies.

Polyclonal Antibodies are antibodies that are secreted by different B cell lineages within the body. Each of these individual antibodies recognizes a unique epitope that is located on that antigen. Polyclonal antibodies are produced by injecting an immunogen into an animal. After being injected with a specific antigen to elicit a primary immune response, the animal is given a secondary even tertiary immunization to produce higher titers of antibodies against the particular antigen.

Monoclonal Antibody are antibodies that are made by identical immune cells that are all clones of a unique parent cell. Monoclonal antibodies can have monovalent affinity, in that they bind to the same epitope. Monoclonal antibodies are produced ex vivo using tissue-culture techniques. The process begins with an injection of the desired antigen into an animal, often a mouse, multiple times.

Two of them are both used in lots of biological and therapeutic research. But they still plays different roles.

In research, scientists often use polyclonal antibodies to identify parts of unknown molecules. Polyclonal antibodies are able to find and attach to it even if a virus or bacteria changes its structure just a little bit. To make polyclonal antibodies, scientists first inject antigen into an animal, generally a sheep, donkey, or rabbit. And them the animal makes antibodies to that antigen.

Here are some advantages of polyclonal antibodies.

Quick to produce. Purified antibody ready to use in under four months.

Inexpensive to produce.

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.

Monoclonal antibodies are highly specific. They're often used to identify disease agents and look at changes in body proteins. In addition, they're useful in creating vaccines or carrying toxins to a particular problematic cell without disturbing its neighbors. The process of creating monoclonal antibodies is rather complex and can take upwards of a year to complete, more time than polyclonal antibodies, which only take a few months or more. However, once created, there is the potential for a constant supply of monoclonal antibodies, unlike polyclonal, which don't have a constant supply.

The following are some advantages of monoclonal antibodies.

Can produce large quantities of identical antibody. Batch to batch homogeneity.

High specificity to a single epitope. Reduced probability of cross reactivity.

Can provide better results in assays requiring quantification of the protein levels.

In general, the advantages of polyclonal antibodies typically outweigh the few advantages that monoclonal antibodies provide. With affinity purification of serum against small antigen targets, the advantages of polyclonal antibodies are further extended.

There are lots of great antibodies manufacturers who supply researchers with premium antibodies. Some of them even offer free trial size antibodies. Cusabio is one of them.

Even though you can find lots of free antibodies samples, you still need to be very cautious. To make sure there is no quality is the first step you need to do before using it for your research, or the consequence may be over-burdened.

Rosie Liu is working as an editor in Cusabio, a manufacture of antibodies, proteins, Elisa kits and related reagents for research use.