KLH Polyclonal Antibody, Invitrogen™

Description

• This product is preservative free
• It is recommended to add sodium azide to avoid contamination (final concentration 0.05%-0.1%)
• This antibody has specificity for KLH or KLH conjucted protein
• Keyhole limpet hemocyanin is an extremely large, heterogeneous glycosylated protein consisting of subunits with a molecular weight of 350,000 and 390,000 in aggregates with molecular weights of 4,500,000-13,000,000
• Each domain of a KLH subunit contains two copper atoms that together bind a single oxygen molecule (O2)
• When oxygen is bound to hemocyanin, the molecule takes on a distinctive transparent, opalescent blue color
• The KLH protein is potently immunogenic yet safe in humans and is therefore highly prized as a vaccine carrier protein
• The large and highly glycosylated KLH protein cannot be reproduced synthetically
• It is available only as a purified biological product from the Keyhole Limpet Megathura crenulata.Keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) is used extensively as a carrier protein in the production of for research, biotechnology and therapeutic applications
• Haptens are substances with a low molecular weight such as peptides, small proteins and drug molecules that are generally not immunogenic and require the aid of a carrier protein to stimulate a response from the immune system in the form of antibody production.[2] KLH is the most widely employed carrier proteins for this purpose
• KLH is an effective carrier protein for several reasons
• Its large size and numerous epitopes generate a substantial immune response, and abundance of lysine residues for coupling haptens, allows a high hapten:carrier protein ratio increasing the likelihood of generating hapten-specific
• In addition, because KLH is derived from the limpet, a gastropod, it is phylogenetically distant from mammalian proteins, thus reducing false positives in immunologically based research techniques in mammalian model organisms
• KLH may also be a challenging molecule to work with because of its propensity to aggregate and precipitate
• Aggregates remain immunogenic, but limit the ability to conjugate haptens and are difficult to manipulate in the laboratory.