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A stable and highly specific antibody plays an important role in obtaining real and repeatable experimental results. It is a big headache if the antibody used in the experiment does not work. And what's even worse is that you use the antibodies to repeat the same experiment but get inconsistent results.

It is estimated that the annual loss in research funding due to the use of antibodies without enough validation is about $ 800 million worldwide. At the same time, it has caused countless experimental failures, and a waste of precious samples and researchers'youth.

Nowadays, the antibody validations information provided by antibody manufacturers and academic articles is very helpful for you to select high-quality antibodies. However, there is still an inevitable problem: whether it is polyclonal antibodies extracted from animal serum or monoclonal antibodies produced by hybridomas, there are more or fewer differences between batches. And recombinant antibodies may finally solve this problem.

Information about Recombinant Antibodies

What are recombinant antibodies?

Recombinant antibodies refers to the application of molecular cloning and gene mutation technology to transform a gene coding sequence of an antibody to produce superior performance of antibodies, also known as genetically engineered antibodies. Comparing with monoclonal antibodies generated in vivo of living animals through hybridoma technology, recombinant antibodies are a type of monoclonal antibodies which are produced in vitro by using synthetic genes.

In recent years, the use of recombinant antibodies is becoming increasingly wider and deeper in both therapeutics and diagnostics. With significant advantages over conventional antibodies, recombinant antibodies become more and more favored. The most important point is that recombinant antibodies can maximize the humanization to solve the heterogeneity between different species.

Generally speaking, recombinant antibodies can be divided into three classes, including chimeric antibody, humanized antibody, fully humanized antibody and small molecular antibody.

The advantages of recombinant antibodies

Compared with traditional antibodies, recombinant antibodies have the advantages of being irresistible, which is one of the reasons for their gradually emerging. Here, we present the advantages one by one as follows:

• High consistency and reproducibility.
• High sensitivity and specificity.
• Short production cycle.
• No animal immunity.
• Isotype switching.

Because recombinant antibodies have these unprecedented advantages, recombinant antibodies fulfill a large spectrum of functions spanning from research to diagnosis and treatment therapies for various diseases. Their specificity and low immunogenicity make them a great alternative to traditional forms of treatment, increasing the accuracy of targeting specific molecules and avoiding adverse side effects.

Additionally, for recombinant antibodies production, it follows principally similar workflow. Generally, it consists of five steps: the construction of antibody gene library, phage display, the separation of antibodies, the modification of the isolated antibodies, and the scaling up of the production of selected antibodies in the cell culture expression system.

Although the processes of recombinant antibodies production are same as workflow, we need to recognize that there are several obstacles to the production of recombinant antibodies, such as lower antibody production, and highly trained and experienced technicians. Due to the complexity and intensive high technology of recombinant antibody production, most scientists need to obtain them from outsourcing companies.

Read the article, The Overview of Recombinant Antibody, for more information.