Site-specific or Peptide-specific Antibody Development

An effective way of producing an antigen of a protein is to design a peptide. Using a synthetic peptide as antigen has some advantages:

1. The produced antibody becomes site-specific, and will only target a small section of your protein.

2. You will know the target structures of the antibody.

3. By designing a peptide, you can avoid unspecific binding to other homologous proteins.

4. The cost of producing the antigen as a synthetic peptide is low.

5. Affinity purification of peptide-specific antibodies is straight forward.

6. We can generate antibodies specific towards certain post-translational modifications in a protein, for example a phosphorylation site or acetylation site, is possible to make using a synthetic peptide as antigen. It’s the closest to monoclonal, a polyclonal antibody can get.

There are also some challenges with peptide antigens. They have to be carefully designed to meet criteria of the customer’s request and the actual antibody generation. Capra Science assists in high-quality peptide design, using the latest information in specialized data bases in the hands of our antibody experts.

Our peptide design criteria

• Client’s requirements and specifications

• High surface probability

• High immunogenicity

• Low homology to other proteins

• The protein’s functional properties and modifications

• Analysis of available crystal structures of the protein

• Suitable hosts of the antibody production

Generating Phospho/Acetylation-specific Antibodies

Would you like an antibody that specifically recognizes a post-translational modification at a given position in your protein? We can help you achieve this. In short, a peptide with the phosphorylation or acetylation is synthesized. Antibodies will be raised against this peptide and we will affinity purify the antiserum on two columns to pull out the antibodies that specifically react towards the modification on your protein. To receive a typical project outline for phospho-/acetylation-specific antibody production, contact us.