Quality control of antibodies for assay development

Antibodies are used as powerful tools in basic research, for example, in biomarker identification, and in various forms for diagnostics, for example, identification of allergies or autoimmune diseases. Due to their robustness and ease of handling, immunoassays are favourite methods for investigation of various biological or medical questions. Nevertheless in many cases, additional analyses such as mass spectrometry are used to validate or confirm the results of immunoassays. To minimize the workload and to increase confidence in immunoassays, there are urgent needs for antibodies which are both highly specific and well validated. Unfortunately many commercially available antibodies are neither well characterized nor fully tested for cross-reactivities. Adequate quality control and validation of an antibody is time-consuming and can be frustrating. Such validation needs to be performed for every assay/application