Isotype control antibodies are essential negative controls for in vivo studies and can play an important role in standard immunoassays such as flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry (IHC). They match the characteristics of the assay’s primary antibody (e.g., isotype, clonality), but have no target cell/antigen specificity. This provides researchers with a suitable negative control to accurately discriminate between an antibody binding in an antigen-dependent specific manner from non-antigen dependent mAb binding due to Fc receptors (FcR) or other proteins. In the simplest terms, isotype controls help distinguish non-specific background signal from specific antibody signal.
Monoclonal, subclass specific (i.e., lambda vs. kappa immunoglobulin) isotype controls provide an especially reliable method that effectively differentiates between specificity versus background in a range of drug development assays.
Download this white paper from Crown Bioscience to learn:
- What are isotype controls, and why are they important?
- How to choose an appropriate isotype control
- Why isotype controls should not be substituted for other alternatives (PBS, secondary only, or polyclonal pools)
- Key examples of performance differences in in vivo studies and immunohistochemistry when using an isotype control vs. other alternatives
