Alpha Lifetech Inc.'s custom chicken polyclonal antibody (pAbs) services including the full-service from chicken immunization, serum-collection, titer analysis, antibody production to antibody modification.

Antibody Production Service - Custom Chicken Polyclonal Antibody (IgY) Production Service

IgY is the main serum immunoglobulin in chicken. Same as IgG, IgY contains two heavy and two light polypeptide chains, shaped in the Y characteristics and presents two binding sites for the antigen. But there is only a little or no immunological cross-reactivity between IgY and mammalian IgG. IgY has a relative higher molecular weight (~180kDa and ~160kDa to IgG) due to an extra constant domain in its heavy chain (H), lacks a well-defined hinge region and has an unique oligosaccharide. Alpha Lifetech Inc. can provide a complete service including antigen synthesis, modification, chicken immunization and IgY purification to produce polyclonal antibody (pAbs) in chickens.

There are several advantages to choose chickens rather than rabbit or goats to produce polyclonal antibodies:

-- Better choice for highly conserved mammalian gene products. Generally, chickens recognize most mammalian gene products as being quite foreign – even the highly conserved sequence – then mount a vigorous immune response.

-- It's easier to perform double immune-staining experiments with IgYs. Since the chicken IgY molecule is quite different antigenically from the mammalian IgG, secondary reagents raised against rabbit and mouse IgGs do not cross-react with chicken IgYs, facilitating experiments that require the use of antibodies from multiple species, such as double immune-staining.

-- Faster and cheaper to produce large amount of antibody in a short period. Moreover, we purify the antibodies from eggs instead of serum, thus avoid the high costs associated with bleeding the animals and purifying from serum.

-- IgYs have lower background than mammalian IgGs, since the IgY molecule lacks the Fc domain, it does not bind to Fc receptors expressed on many cells of the reticuloendothelial system.

The general protocol of chicken IgY production is shown as follows:

Antigen Preparation: antigen design & synthesis, hapten/small molecules modification (KLH, BSA, OVA, Hydralink-conjugated)

Antibody Production: hens are immunized by 4-5 times and eggs are collected as resource for antibody production

Antibody Purification: dextran gel chromatography

Antibody Modification (optional): enzymes (HRP, AP, biotinylation), fluorescence groups (FITC), agarose bead, quantum dot, magnetic bead conjugation etc.

Service Features of Custom Chicken Polyclonal Antibody (IgY) Production Service

-- Large-scale production of chicken polyclonal antibody

-- Low background signal and no cross-reaction with mammalian IgG

Please feel free to contact us at any time if you have any questions.