Buying custom antibodies, opinions?

[themadhatterj]

My lab is looking to buy some custom antibodies, but we aren't sure what the best options are for us.

Our antigen is nicastrin, and our main concerns are price & quality of the antibodies.

Regardless of those things, I just want to know your personal experiences with whatever your custom anitbody providers are. I have done research on Pierce Antibodies, Abcam, GenScript, AbD Serotec, and Rockland, Inc., so any information you may have about those particular vendors would be especially helpful.

[CharonY]

Well, price and support does vary to some extent between countries so it is not that easy to generalize. We had bought large amounts from Abcam and Pierce mostly but also sourced from many other major companies. Unfortunately for custom antibodies it is a bit hit and miss. We never found a single company that could make all ABs work. Sometimes, for some reasons, a specific one would not work from one company, but sourced from another company (with same parameters) it worked in our hands. Some do not work at all, etc.

 

In the end I would could go according to price (if you plan to do many customs they may quote you a better price) and just try them out.