Antibody Validation in Bioimaging Applications Based on Endogenous Expression of Tagged Proteins.

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Skogs M, Stadler C, Schutten R, Hjelmare M, Gnann C, Björk L, Poser I, Hyman A, Uhlén M, Lundberg E

J. Proteome Res. 16 (1) 147-155 [2017-01-06; online 2016-10-12]

Antibodies are indispensible research tools, yet the scientific community has not adopted standardized procedures to validate their specificity. Here we present a strategy to systematically validate antibodies for immunofluorescence (IF) applications using gene tagging. We have assessed the on- and off-target binding capabilities of 197 antibodies using 108 cell lines expressing EGFP-tagged target proteins at endogenous levels. Furthermore, we assessed batch-to-batch effects for 35 target proteins, showing that both the on- and off-target binding patterns vary significantly between antibody batches and that the proposed strategy serves as a reliable procedure for ensuring reproducibility upon production of new antibody batches. In summary, we present a systematic scheme for antibody validation in IF applications using endogenous expression of tagged proteins. This is an important step toward a reproducible approach for context- and application-specific antibody validation and improved reliability of antibody-based experiments and research data.

Spatial Proteomics [Technology development]

PubMed 27723985

DOI 10.1021/acs.jproteome.6b00821

Crossref 10.1021/acs.jproteome.6b00821