Advantages of rabbit monoclonal antibodies
The rabbit immune system generates and affinity matures antibodies by mechanisms that differ from those of mice and other rodents. Rabbit monoclonal antibodies normally have 10 to 100-fold higher affinity for antigen than mouse monoclonal antibodies. In addition, the rabbit immune system can generate antibodies that are able to distinguish between very similar molecules with subtle structural variations.
Advantages of AvantGen’s technology for generation of rabbit monoclonal antibodies
We combine an optimized rabbit immunization protocol and AvantGen’s robust yeast display system. Thus, we are able to generate a yeast display library of sufficient size allowing us to isolate very high affinity monoclonal antibodies. The yeast display system is uniquely suited for rabbit antibodies, which have an additional disulfide bond in their light chain. This disulfide bond formation is believed to be important for the high affinity and specificity observed for rabbit antibodies. In contrast, phage display normally does not support such modifications.
Our approach overcomes issues associated with rabbit hybridoma-based technology, such as low fusion efficiency, unstable cell lines and low antibody yield. It also greatly shortens the time required to generate monoclonal antibody producing stable cells. Finally, antibodies generated with our technology often exhibit affinities in the range of 0.001-1.0 nM as demonstrated by a recently completed contract project for the National Cancer Institute (NCI)[HHSN261201300023C].
Two examples of monoclonal antibody clones generated for this project with AvantGen’s technology are shown below. One can specifically distinguish a peptide in its phosphorylated and non-phosphorylated form. The second figure shows rabbit monoclonal antibody clones against polysaccharides from group A Streptococcus (Strep A).
Phospho-specific rabbit monoclonal antibody
A rabbit monoclonal antibody clone against a phosphorylated peptide derived from a cancer antigen, AVG309: NH2-RPHFPQF-pS-YSASGTA-OH (phosphopeptide). This clone has a KD=0.02 nM and does not recognize its non-phosphorylated counterpart (AVG311 NH2-RPHFPQFSYSASGTA-OH) or other unrelated peptides (AVG301-308) even at >1000-fold higher antibody concentration than the KD value.
Bacterial strain (Strep A)-specific rabbit monoclonal antibody
From antigen to rabbit monoclonal antibody-producing cells in less than 5 months
Harness the advantages of rabbit monoclonal antibody for your research needs
- Novel epitope recognition
- Differentiation between subtle structural variations
- Detection of post-translational modifications
- IHC study with low background
- Use of mouse proteins and tissues
AvantGen’s custom services offer you:
- High-quality rabbit monoclonal antibodies tailored to your needs
- Dedicated team assigned to your project
- Experience gained from working with various targets from the NIH and commercial partners
- Cost and time saving benefits for your project
- Rabbit mAb-expressing stable cell lines
- Monoclonal antibody clones characterized at the DNA sequence level for consistent batch-to-batch performance
For more information and inquiries about AvantGen’s rabbit monoclonal antibody services, please contact us: service@nullavantgen.com