Antibody produced in same species as target tissue - Will it cross react? (Jun/04/2007 )

Please forgive me for the obvious question, but I'm not an immunologist! A colleague has had an antibody made in rat - rat polyclonal from a synthetic peptide (peptide against human sequence). I need to use the antibody on rat cells/tissue etc. Is this OK or will the rat IgG cross react with my samples. Help!?

Rachelle

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since the antibody is made in rat it is not against rat protein so you should have no problem there.

the antibody is polyclonal against the synthetic peptide. that means that it should recognize more than one epitope of the peptide but it is still specific to the peptide.

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I find that confusing.

You are using antibody made in rat - so this peptide is foreign to rat; because of that there will be Ab production.

But then, you want to use this on 'rat tissue'. Are the peptides there in the rat tissue (your samples)?

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