Performing immunoassays experiment is often a time-consuming task. For this reason, it is important to make the best decisions about assay design early on. And the decision to use monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies should be made right at the beginning of the project.
Although monoclonal antibodies remain ideal molecules for a wide range of applications, some specific immunoassays may actually benefit from the use of polyclonal antibodies. These healthy antibodies, often paired with monoclonal antibodies, are known to increase the sensitivity and stability of this technique. You can also check out Boster Bio featured products to know more about antibodies.
This increased sensitivity is a result of the clonal diversity of these molecules. Due to their diverse nature, polyclonal immunoglobulins can target the entire antigen, not just a few or target epitopes.
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This is because these molecules are designed to bind to multiple sites (i.e., epitopes) on the antigen. In addition, this multiple binding allows multiple antibodies to bind to the same antigen, resulting in more efficient signal amplification and capture of the target antigen, which is highly desirable for IP and IHC techniques.
In screening and detection techniques such as indirect ELISA, it is known that the use of an antibody paired with a polyclonal antibody as a secondary antibody increases the sensitivity of the assay.
This is because these polyclonal molecules can be engineered to target monoclonal antibodies. Thus, when a monoclonal antibody recognizes and binds to an antigen, several polyclonal antibodies will bind to the same antigen-antibody complex. In this case, the signal is amplified and the sensitivity of the analysis is increased.
