As a global market leader with numerous subsidiaries and distributors, Miltenyi Biotec is committed to providing our customers around the world with the highest quality products. In addition to direct selling in more than 20 countries in North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific, Miltenyi Biotec also provides support for our customers through an extensive distributor network covering dozens of additional countries.
With the introduction of recombinant antibodies in 2012, we made a significant investment into improving the quality and consistency of our antibodies (link to REA background page). The standardized antibody production process, starting from a defined DNA sequence, and the nature of recombinant antibodies ensure high purity and lot-to-lot consistency.
In addition, recombinant antibodies do not display any undesired mixtures of heavy and light immunoglobulin chains, which is often the case with conventional hybridoma-derived antibodies⁵ (PMID: 29485921). Furthermore, our REAfinity™ Recombinant Antibodies have a mutated Fc region that abolishes any binding to Fcγ receptors, resulting in a background-free analysis. These advantages make REAfinity Recombinant Antibodies ideal tools for improving experimental reproducibility.
In 2020, we began the further step of providing antibody validation data directly on our product pages. We do this in order to make it even easier for our customers to choose the antibodies that best match their needs, and to decrease the validation efforts required on their researcher side. With well over 10,000 antibodies in our portfolio, this is an ongoing project and information is updated regularly, so please do check back from time to time. In addition, below you can find some insights on how we conduct our antibody validation process.
All our antibodies are rigorously tested and validated before release. In the application section on the product page, you can find examples of typical performance data. In addition, we provide extended validation data highlighting details of antibody performance, specificity, and fixation compatibility. All antibodies for which any of these datasets are already available will be indicated with the extended validation stamp. That list will be continuously expanded, so be sure to check back soon if you don’t see what you need yet.
REAfinity Recombinant Antibodies are based on three pillars of validation: reproducibility, specificity, and sensitivity. Please find more detailed information for each validation method below:
The nature of our REAfinity Recombinant Antibodies ensures reproducibility since they don't have any Immunoglobulin impurities and don't show background signal due to a mutated Fc region.
After conjugation of antibodies, any unbound fluorochromes and antibodies are removed to purify the final product.
During development of an antibody, a suitable test to verify specificity of the clone is performed. Several approaches are possible. Below you will find a list of methods we typically perform.
To validate the specificity of an antibody, a suitable counterstaining is performed, which verifies the target population.
Based on the fluorescence signal obtained, the clones were identified as recognizing completely overlapping (++), partially overlapping (+), or completely different epitopes (-) of the marker.
| Other clones | Overlap in epitope recognition with REA196 |
|---|---|
| NCAM16.2 | ++ |
| TULY56 | ++ |
| 5.1H11 | ++ |
| AF12-7H3 | - |
| C5.9 | ++ |
| N901/NKH1 | ++ |
| CMSSB | + |
| B159 | - |
| HCD56 | - |
| MEM188 | - |
Sensitivity of an antibody in an intended application is important for reliable identification of target cells. The following approaches are taken at Miltenyi Biotec to ensure that only functional and validated antibodies are part of the portfolio:
All conjugated antibodies, including multiple conjugates of the same clone, are tested on primary samples. Whenever possible, antibodies are tested in multicolor panels. In addition, antibodies are routinely tested on cells derived from tissues using enzymatic treatment. This allows for validation of antibody sensitivity to epitopes that have undergone enzymatic processing.
Validation is of course not solely the responsibility of the supplier because antibody validation methods and antibody validation protocols are highly dependent on the intended application and experimental setup. For this reason, we recommend thoroughly researching the most suited validation methods for your application. Several articles have been published providing antibody validation guidelines, as well as publication guidelines. A selection is given below:
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