Detecting Proteins Using Antibodies

Question 1

What are Immunoassay techniques used for?

Answer 1

To detect and identify specific proteins

Question 2

What do immunoassay techniques use?

Answer 2

They use stocks of antibodies with the same specificity known as monoclonal antibodies

Question 3

What is an antibody specific to the protein antigen linked to?

Answer 3

A chemical label

Question 4

What is a chemical label?

Answer 4

The label is often a reporter enzyme producing a colour change but chemiluminescence, fluorescence and other reporters can be used. In some cases the asssay uses a specific antigen to detect the presence of antibodies

Question 5

What is western blotting?

Answer 5

A technique used to identify proteins after SDS-PAGE electrophoresis in which the separated proteins from the gel are transferred onto a solid medium. The proteins can then be identified using specific antibodies that have reporter enzymes attached