Antibody Plasmid Collection
Addgene distributes ready-to-use recombinant antibodies made from plasmids in our collection!
Many of these monoclonal antibodies are produced in-house and undergo application-specific validation and quality control by Addgene as well as by our trusted partner labs.
Antibodies are large proteins made by the immune system that bind to an antigen, a particular part of a foreign substance. In addition to being useful for our bodies to fight off intruders, antibodies are also extremely useful to researchers in a lab. When an antibody binds tightly to a specific antigen, scientists can use it to pull out a protein of choice from a mix of other proteins, visualize a protein under a microscope, or detect when the protein is present in a sample--just to name a few.
Traditional sources of antibodies for research purposes include animals or hybridoma cells, but are difficult to generate due to expense and time. An alternative approach is to use synthetically produced recombinant antibodies, created by cloning antibody components into plasmids and expressing these in bacteria, mammalian cells, yeast, plants, or insect cells. Benefits include consistency between lots and the ability to optimize the antibody’s antigen binding sequence to improve binding and reproducibility.
Some scientists choose to work with full length recombinant monoclonal antibodies (R-mAbs) expressed in mammalian cells. Monoclonal antibodies are derived from an individual clone targeting a single antigen. An example of R-mAbs is the NeuroMab collection - monoclonal antibodies extensively validated for neuroscience research applications from the NeuroMab/Trimmer Lab Recombinant mAb Collection. Once the plasmids are transiently transfected into mammalian tissue culture cells, the R-mAbs are secreted into the culture media and can be collected for use.
Other scientists may choose to work with a smaller fragment of an antibody, which could offer increased stability and ease of production due to their small size. These recombinant antibody fragments can be used in experiments such as immunoprecipitation and super-resolution microscopy. Two commonly used plasmid-based antibody fragments are scFvs and single-domain antibodies (also known as nanobodies). For example, scientists often use plasmids encoding scFv fragments that bind to the GCN4 peptide, from the popular SunTag system, fused to sfGFP for imaging.
Learn more about antibodies and their applications in our Antibody Guide!
Cloning and Expressing Antibodies
The following table highlights plasmid collections that can be used to create and express plasmid-based antibodies.
Antibody Plasmids
The table below highlights plasmids that feature expression of antibodies, nanobodies or ScFvs. Use the search bar or sort buttons to find antibody plasmids for:
- Common antigens such as GFP or mCherry
- Monoclonals, Nanobodies, Sybodies, or ScFVs
- Secondary antibodies (search for "anti-mouse" or "anti-rabbit")
| ID | Plasmid | Description | Gene/Insert | PI |
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Do you have suggestions for other plasmids that should be added to this list?
Fill out our Suggest a Plasmid form or e-mail [email protected] to help us improve this resource!