In a recent publication in Journal of Proteome Research, researchers from the Cell Profiling group of the Human Protein Atlas team present a new approach for validation of antibodies for bioimaging applications.

Antibodies are indispensible research tools, yet the scientific community has not adopted standardized procedures to validate their specificity. Here the researchers present a strategy to systematically validate antibodies for immunofluorescence applications using gene tagging.

Marie Skogs is the first author of the study.

– After a M. Sc...Read more

The Human Protein Atlas has since the first array validated antibody in November 2004 now passed 50 000 protein microarray validated antibodies.

The Human Protein Atlas contains information for a large majority of all human protein-coding genes regarding the expression and localization of the corresponding proteins based on both RNA and protein data. For the protein data, antibodies are used to show localization, and now 50 000 antibodies have been produced and verified within the project.

– This is a true heroic effort, says professor Peter Nilsson, site director at the SciLifeLab-site in Stockholm...Read more

An international working group has formulated directives to evaluate antibodies used in biomedical research. A paper in Nature Methods suggests five conceptual pillars for antibody validation.

Antibodies are used frequently both in research and in the clinic, and today over two million commercial antibodies are available for the analysis of human proteins. This has been accompanied with a dramatic development in clinical treatment of diseases, like cancer and autoimmune diseases, where biological drugs in the form of antibodies have changed the treatment of many patient categories...Read more