EuroMAbNet: European Monoclonal Antibodies Network

2.F Accurately identify individual antibodies

There will frequently be multiple suppliers of the same reagent and thus a long list from a web search may represent only a small number of different antibodies.

• 1. Monoclonal antibodies: These can usually be distinguished by their clone name. Please note that abbreviations or changes to a clone name can, however, make this difficult, particularly when trying to trace prior data regarding antibody validation.
• 2. Polyclonal antibodies: Rarely have a unique identifier and the user should be aware that subsequent batches derived from different animals may not behave in the same way and need to be re-validated and optimised. Check for an identical immunogen and validation data images in product sheets to identify multiple suppliers of the same antibody. Sometimes researchers will include a product code in their materials and methods that can be used to identify polyclonal antibodies.