The traditional polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies have led to the advancement in various sectors for many years. However, they have been supplemented with custom antibodies, which has allowed for further engineering and customization. Custom antibody production services mainly necessitated this leap in the research industry.
Custom antibody production comes with many applications in research that range from therapeutic developments to in vitro testing. It is thus crucial to choose a source containing a proven track record. This article focuses on reviewing the disadvantages and the advantages of the services specializing in the production of antibodies.
Advantages
Custom antibody production assists with the selection of suitable antibodies
Sometimes, it could be challenging to decide the antibody types that need to be used. For example, you could be stuck between polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies. The manufacturing method of the antibodies determines if they are polyclonal or monoclonal. Monoclonal antibodies identify only one epitope of an antigen, while polyclonal antibodies recognize multiple epitopes and possess a stronger affinity for a specific antigen.
The utilization of the monoclonal antibody over a polyclonal antibody in research is inclusive of higher homogeneity and a consistency that is batch-to-batch. On the other hand, monoclonal antibody manufacturing is necessary for a separate set of procedures and abilities. That adds to the time and cost of the creation of batches. Therefore, whether the monoclonal or polyclonal antibody is needed is dependent on the project timelines, the application, and the availability of stable cell lines. The significant advantage of partnering with a reputable manufacturer of custom antibodies is that consumers benefit from the experience and expertise garnered over the years.
It Surmounts the Basic Risks of Production
Undoubtedly, antibodies are precious tools in both clinical and research practice. They are utilized mainly to cure and detect illnesses performance of bioanalysis in biomedical and pharmaceutical fields. They are crucial in therapeutic development and are also helpful as therapies themselves.
If they are not correctly created, antibodies are well for their lack of ability to achieve their intended effect. On the other hand, creating antibodies is quite a complicated process that affects every stage of the process.
It Fuels Novel Research
The service of custom antibodies has led to the expansion of recombinant antibody usage in many newspapers since it promotes their availability. An example is the Abcam’s anti-ATG16L1 or the phosphor S278 antibody, which was used previously to investigate autophagy induction. Its SMARCA4, H3K27ac, and HMGB1 antibodies have helped discover the host elements related to the infection of SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, recombinant antibodies have allowed new paths of therapeutic research.
It Minimizes the Usage of Animals
Proposals have been tabled to lobby end-users, including other stakeholders, to accept the non-animal-derived antibodies’ scientific validity. The proposal’s emphasis is mainly on antibodies that are non-animal derived and produced by phage display which is a well-established method that enriches protein binding from huge libraries. The services of antibody manufacturing lead to this transition without the usage of animals.
Allows for the High Target Specificity
The modern methods of producing antibodies among the best providers do not include using animal subjects, given that the services primarily rely on the reagents of recombinant antibodies. The former antibodies with low specificity have come with many frustrations in research. However, it is fortunate that researchers have done away with dealing with those setbacks concerning the recombinant monoclonals case. It is best known to possess the most impressive target specificity rate with hybridoma polyclonals and monoclonals. The application of high target specificity will save you a lot of money and time.
As much as custom antibody production comes with a lot of advantages, it also comes with a lot of
disadvantages which include;
Disadvantages
High Cost of Production
Monoclonal antibodies usually are very large, with about 150 kDa of multimeric proteins that contain large quantities of post-translational modifications and disulfide bonds like glycosylation. Therefore, they require eukaryotic machinery that is quite sophisticated to generate or produce inactive forms. In addition, therapeutic antibody production necessitates the usage of significant mammalian cell cultures, which are usually followed by very extensive purification steps. The process should also be under suitable conditions of manufacturing practices, thus leading to very extremely high production costs.
Other Disadvantages include:
Monoclonal Antibody
- Has low affinity
- A longer time of production
- It is more difficult when peptide immunogens are used
- It needs a minimum immunogen of 4mg
- The antibodies least likely to work for many applications
- Higher development cost
Polyclonal Antibody
- Needs high requirements to purify immunogens
- It is more prone to the production of the non-specific antibodies
- Produces the background signals in specific applications
- There is a lot of difficulty in production
- Lot-to-lot characterization variability
Final Thoughts
The recombinant antibodies’ second generation has led to the approval of greater than 20 mAbs for therapy applications. That has led to precious clinical data. Clinical results are currently being used to guide antibody engineers to the new approaches to make the antibodies more efficient. Presently, the antibody-derived molecules of the third generation are potentially way more efficient than the conventional mAbs. As much as custom antibody production comes with its challenges and disadvantages, they are the best in the current state of technology. More innovations need to be invested in streamlining these custom antibody production processes.
