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What are secondary antibodies?
Secondary antibodies are polyclonal or monoclonal antibodies that bind to primary antibodies or antibody fragments, such as the Fc or Fab regions. They are generated by immunizing a host animal with an antibody from a different species. Goat, donkey, sheep, chicken and rabbit are the most commonly used host species for raising secondary antibodies, though others are available.
What is the difference between a primary antibody and a secondary antibody?
This is a question often asked by green hands in the laboratory. Don't worry, a nice guy from CUSABIO has written an article about this question which entitled “The difference between primary antibody and secondary antibody”. In this article, the guy answers this question from five angles: binding capability, use & label, source, clonality, and pre-adsorption.
How to choose a secondary antibody?
For secondary antibodies, besides the common question about the difference between primary antibody and secondary antibody, how to select a right secondary antibody for your experiment is the ultimate question. If you want to solve this question, you need to consider the following aspects:
This is the first step in our search for a suitable secondary antibody. It should also be the principle that everyone is most familiar with: which species the primary antibody should come from, and which species the secondary antibody should resist.
The light chain of different types of antibodies can be divided into kappa (κ) type or lambda (λ) type, and the structure of the heavy chain determines the class of each antibody. Strictly speaking, the secondary antibody needs to match the same type of primary antibody. About this point, you can view the question named what is the class (isotype) and/or subclass of the primary antibody to acquire more information.
Specific for the entire antibody molecule (H+L): such as anti-IgG (H+L), this kind of antibodies can bind to various structural components of the antibody and can react with other immunoglobulins (IgM or IgA). Because all immunoglobulins have the same light chain (κ or λ).
Specific for Fab fragments: this kind of antibodies can bind to both heavy and light chains, and since they can react with light chains, they can also bind to other immunoglobulins with the same light chain.
Specific for Fc fragments or heavy chains: These antibodies react with the Fc region of the heavy chain and, therefore, they are class-specific. For example, a γ-chain-specific antibody reacts only with IgG, and a μ-chain-specific antibody reacts only with IgM.
Specific for light chains: reacts with all classes of antibodies.
In general, secondary antibodies can be either enzyme-labeled (horseradish peroxidase HRP and alkaline phosphatase AP or its derivatives APAAP, PAP), fluorescence-labeled (FITC, Alexa-Fluor, Qdot) or biotin-conjugated. The secondary antibody to which the label is selected depends primarily on the specific experiment.
Goat Anti-Rabbit IgG(H+L) Antibody; HRP conjugated referenced in "Engineering a Second-Order DNA Logic-Gated Nanorobot to Sense-then-Release on Live Cell Mibranes for Multiplexed Diagnosis and Synergistic Therapy". Angewandte Chiie-International Edition, 2021
Rabbit anti-Human IgG Antibody;HRP conjugated referenced in "Breast cancer therapy affects the expression of antineonatal Nav1. 5 antibodies in the serum of patients with breast cancer". Oncology Letters, 2020
Goat Anti-Rabbit IgG(H+L) Antibody;HRP-conjugated referenced in "Anti-recoverin antibodies indicate fundus abnormalities in systiic lupus erythiatosus". Lupus, 2020
Rabbit anti-Human IgG Fc Antibody;HRP conjugated referenced in "Hyaluronic acid-endostatin2-alft1 (HA-ES2-AF) nanoparticle-like conjugate for the target treatment of diseases". Journal of Controlled Release, 2018
