Protein A- agarose or protein A- sepharose? - immunoprecipitation (Nov/21/2007 )

Hi all,
do you know what advantages "Protein A- sepharose" have over "Protein A- agarose" when immunoprecipitating a protein out of cell lysete with the specific antisera?
I am using protein A agarose and having a lot of backround. However, Protein A- sepharose is used in most of the IP protocols I have read. Do you think sepharose-agarose substitution generates the huge backround??
Thanks

sepharose is just pharmacia(amersham, ge healthcare)'s name for agarose.

pharmacia always touted sepharose as properly aged agarose, implying that other agaroses were not. but there is really no significant difference.

sepharose-cl is crosslinked and is more stable than regular agarose.

one other thing to consider: is the ligand on sepharose better than on agarose? do you trust ge to produce a better quality product so that you will be willing to pay a little more for it?