immunofluorescence staining protocol question - (Oct/02/2015 )

Greetings

I am doing immunofluorescence staining and in the protocol it says block with BSA before adding primary antibody. I know BSA prevents non specific binding of the antibody by blocking access to these non specific proteins however does it not block my protein of interest as well? how does it discriminate, or how exactly does it block.

Thanks for your answers

The BSA blocks proteins that bind any protein non-specifically. This might include parts of your target protein, but antibodies bind to very specific epitopes that are usually 8aa or less in length, so they are unlikely to be blocked, or if they are - the ab isn't any good for IF...