polyclonal antibody vs monoclonal antibody - (Feb/05/2015 )

Hi,

I'm studying a gene whose monoclonal antibody is not commercially available but polyclonal antibody is widely available.  I've seen a few papers use polyclonal antibody for IHC in a large sample size. I thought monoclonal antibodies are more specific and results are repeatable with such. Thought its nor advisable to conduct IHC using polyclonal antibodies.

In theory monoclonal antibodies are better if you can get them, but staining should work fine with a polyclonal.  If you can use the same antibody as some of the published work, you should be fine.