Since hybridomes discovery, antibodies are more and more used as a biology tool in all research laboratories. They belong to the immunoglobulin’s family and are composed of two light chain and 2 heavy chain bounded together with disulfide. Each of these chains has a constant and variable domain. This variable domain is specific to a paratope (antigen binding site). This specificity is responsible of the high binding affinity.

Thanks to this property, antibodies are used to identify presence of molecules into a sample. Permanently synthesized via hybridomes (hybrid of plasmocytes and tumor myeloid cells), some of antibodies can be linked to signal molecules such as biotin, or fluorescent molecules such as GFP. Use these molecules, help to detect the presence or the absence of the targeted protein into the sample. Frequently, researchers used secondary antibodies (specific to constant domain of primary antibodies) to amplify signal and have a better visualization.

The Flo400 automation is design to perform immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence techniques onto slide and wholemount samples. These techniques are used to identify the presence of proteins into samples and characterize their proteome. The frequently asked question from laboratory using Flo400 is about antibodies. Which type of antibody should I used with your ISH/ IHC system? Our Automation is designed to used any type of primary and secondary antibodies so such they are specific of your antigen. Antibodies linked with a fluorochrome will also be preserved because all the fluidic system is kept in the dark. It is really important to check the specificity of the secondary antibody with the primary to be sure that the signal amplification is specific for the antigen and not due to non specific binding of the secondary antibody.

All these non specifics bindings are eluted during washing of samples via the Flo400. This permits a precise and specific signal but also a decrease of the background noise during the results visualization. Flo400 performs IHC and Immunofluorescence techniques in optimum conditions and gives reproducible, precise and high-standard results. If you need more information on antibodies used by our team, please contact us.