Why use Fusion's FET technology recombinant proteins as antigens instead of peptides?

The major advantage in using recombinant proteins is that antibodies raised against them are more likely to recognise the native protein compared to peptide antibodies. There are several reasons for this:

- Both linear and conformational epitopes can be displayed using protein antigens, as opposed to linear only epitopes with peptides.

- Proteins have longer half-lives than peptides and therefore are presented to the host immune system at a higher concentration for a longer periods than peptides.

- Protein antigens generate a better immune response than peptide conjugates.

- Antibodies generated by a protein antigen will have higher affinity and avidity to the target protein than peptide antibodies.

- We have produced monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies using both recombinant proteins and peptides (from the same protein epitope) as antigens. In all cases the titre of the antibodies raised against the proteins was over 1000 fold higher compared to those raised against peptides.

Our high-throughput platform technology for recombinant protein production we can produce proteins within 4 weeks. This compares favourably with peptide synthesis timescales.

Another beneficial aspect of our recombinant protein technology is cost; a significant number of customers use 3 or more peptides to raise a single polyclonal antibody. The cost of such a project is considerably more than a project using a recombinant protein as an antigen.

If you have any queries or would like any further information please do not hesistate to contact us.