The antibody production process is important for both research and diagnostic laboratories. Polyclonal antibodies are obtained by injecting a lab animal (typically rabbit or goat) with an antigen and harvesting the resulting antibodies from the animal’s serum. Often, the antigen is mixed with an adjuvant such as Complete Freund’s Adjuvant, to enhance the immune response and increase antibody titer. These antibodies can be used in a variety of laboratory immunoassays, such as indirect fluorescent antibody (IF) assays and immune-electron microscopy.

Polyclonal antibodies are custom antibody services from multiple B-cell clones that differentiate into antibody-producing plasma cells in response to an antigen. This means that they can recognize several epitopes of the target molecule, which results in signal amplification in indirect immunoassays such as immune-electron microscopy. Because of their high specificity and versatility, polyclonal antibodies are a popular choice for many laboratory applications. However, their batch-to-batch variability and the use of animals raise ethical concerns. In addition, the antibodies produced can be contaminated by impurities that are present in the immunogen. This can result in false positive or negative results in certain assays.

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Despite these limitations, animal derived polyclonal antibodies remain an essential tool for researchers and diagnostic laboratories. In fact, human clinical trials have successfully tested animal derived polyclonal antibodies as a therapy against medical overdoses of drugs including colchicine and digoxin, antivenins for snake, arachnid, and marine venom poisoning, and post-exposure prophylaxis against rabies. The potential to rapidly and cost-effectively produce a broad range of polyclonal antibodies against a wide variety of pathogenic antigens may enable future advances in vaccine development and treatment for longstanding neglected tropical diseases as well as new infectious threats such as the Ebola virus.