Our in-house custom antibody delivery team has a proven track record of developing antibodies to challenging targets with exacting specifications. With an industry-leading dedication to quality, we deliver high-performance reagents that work as you need them to and perform consistently over time.

Contact our team at custom@abcam.com.

We deliver high-performance antibodies at scale to give you confidence in your results and help progress your research. We partner with you at every stage of your discovery and development process, working as an extension of your in-house team, to design and develop antibodies that support your project from early research through to the clinic.

Why work with us?

• Our teams have decades of experience in antibody discovery, immunogen design and immunization strategies alongside specialists in protein development, assay development, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and more. Working with our team of experts means that your project is in the best possible hands.

• We focus on tailored campaigns with careful risk mitigation, using data-led insights to ensure results-based progression at critical decision points

• You’ll gain access to our network of partners, including diagnostic developers and GMP manufacturers, providing a seamless transition from development through to commercialization

• With access to the global research community, we can independently validate your reagent, build on your results, and provide a foundation for market adoption for your target

• We offer flexible platform selection with evolving technologies:

  • Multiple immunogen approaches and immunization strategies
  • Predictive bleed titres for target IgG/ IgM response and animal selection
  • Target enrichment and selection/ deselection of B-cells
  • Straight-to-clone hybridoma process
  • High-throughput recombinant conversion for unique hit identification
  • Single B-cell cloning
  • Extensive target scoping
  • Personalized screening cascade, characterization and validation plan

Why recombinant rabbit monoclonal antibodies?

• Antibody Diversity: Two affinity maturation mechanisms in rabbits lead to a more diverse set of epitopes and high sensitivity, so there’s a greater chance of finding antibodies to challenging targets
• Cross-reactivity: Rabbits are evolutionarily distant meaning greater chance of cross-reactivity across Human- Mouse-Cyno antigens to allow for seamless transition from animal to human models in preclinical studies

Ref: From rabbit antibody repertoires to rabbit monoclonal antibodies | Experimental & Molecular Medicine

"Know-how" and continuous innovation:

Focus on quality

• Recombinant production for security of supply and consistent antibody performance
• Antibody engineering for flexibility of species backbone and multiplexing options
• Variety of formulation and conjugation options for “ready-to-use” reagent
• Extensive validation in wide range of applications, including IHC, live cell flow cytometry, functional assays and pair development tailored to your specific end-use requirements
• Knock-out testing using in-house CRISPR-Cas9 edited cell lines
• Sensitivity - off-rate ranking of candidate antibodies on Octet-BLI
• Multiclonal development (polyclonals made from a mixture of recombinant monoclonal antibodies for consistent results each time)
• Biophysical characterization for ultimate batch-to-batch consistency

IHC antibodies

There’s an ever-present need for high-performing IHC antibodies for early discovery, diagnostics, patient stratification, and prognosis. The lack of such reagents, or use of poor- quality reagents, can hinder clinical progress and lead to poor outcomes for patients. We know the development of antibodies with high performance in IHC applications can be challenging, particularly for difficult targets such as membrane proteins, disease-specific proteins and low-abundance proteins.

Our custom antibody team has a dedicated IHC resource, leveraging years of experience generating IHC antibodies for our catalog. A high percentage of our custom programmes have an IHC requirement, and we design screening cascades to enable selection of IHC-positive clones early in the discovery pathway.

Typical programmes utilize:

• Positive and negative FFPE and fresh frozen tissues for testing, as well as FFPE cell pellets
• Cell and tissue treatments
• Additional validation including H-scoring can also be incorporated
• We can manufacture antibodies for IHC to ISO13485 quality standards

Product highlights

Lot-to-lot consistency

Eliminating lot-to-lot variability is important for long-term projects, enabling comparability of results across different stages and removing the requirement for repeated lot validation and re-optimization of assays. Biophysical Quality Control: Our new standard for antibody validation

Biophysical QC of antibodies uses a toolkit of established tests including liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to create a molecular fingerprint of each antibody lot for ultimate consistency.

• Confirm molecular identity of antibody protein
• Confirm sequence integrity
• Ensure monomer state – if aggregates detected perform SEC
• Guarantee purity of sample

Biophysical QC of multiple production lots of antibody clones

A: Recombinant Anti-PRAME antibody [EPR20330] (ab219650)

B: Recombinant Anti-Ki67 antibody [SP6] (ab16667)

LC-MS demonstrates that only heavy and light sequences present – observed Molecular Weights of heavy and light chains match the theoretical molecular weights.

HPLC-SEC demonstrates single monomer antibody peak with no impurities or aggregates.

Knock-out validation

The demand for validation testing that demonstrates antibody specificity continues to dominate the industry, as the quality of reagents like antibodies continues to be linked to the global reproducibility crisis. We‘re dedicated to the highest specificity testing, including the validation of antibodies using our in-house gene-edited cell lines generated using CRISPR-cas9 technology to precisely disrupt the specific gene of interest. If your antibody discovery would benefit from knock-out validation, our team of experts can work with you to incorporate it into your project.

Examples of antibody validation using in-house KO cell lines.

1- ab276095 Human ATM knockout A549 cell line and ab201022 Anti-ATM antibody [EPR20100]; 2- ab255385 Human EGFR knockout HeLa cell line and ab32077 Anti-EGFR antibody [E235]; 3- ab273871 Human MS4A1 (CD20) knockout Raji cell line and ab64088 Anti-CD20 antibody [SP32]; 4-ab286394 Human EGFR knockout A549 cell line and ab32077 Anti-EGFR antibody [E235]; 5- ab276116 Human CASP1 (Caspase-1) knockout THP-1 cell line and ab207802 Anti-Caspase-1 antibody [EPR19672]; 6- ab255343 Human SQSTM1 (p62) knockout HEK-293T cell line and ab56416 Anti-SQSTM1 / p62 antibody [2C11]; 7- ab265708 Human SLC3A2 (CD98) knockout HeLa cell line and ab253273 Anti-CD98 antibody [M001]; 8- ab266828 Human B2M (beta 2 Microglobulin) knockout HEK-293T cell line  and ab218230 Anti-beta 2 Microglobulin antibody [EPR21752-214]; 9- ab286455 Human ErbB2 / HER2 knockout A549 cell line and ab237715 Anti-ErbB2 / HER2 antibody [CAL27]; 10- ab273378 Human CD74 knockout Raji cell line and ab270265 Anti-CD74 antibody [CLIP/3127R]; 11- ab286332 Human TSC1 knockout MCF7 cell line and ab270967 Anti-Hamartin antibody [EPR24364-109]; 12- ab255402 Human LAMP2 knockout HeLa cell line and ab199947 Anti-LAMP2 antibody [EPR19531]; 13- ab266658 Human CD276 knockout HEK-293T cell line and ab219648 Anti-CD276 antibody [EPR20115]; 14- ab266598 Human PARP1 knockout HEK-293T cell line  and ab32138 Anti-PARP1 antibody [E102]; 15- ab288875 Human MSH3 knockout A549 cell line and ab275928 Anti-MSH3 antibody [RM405]; 16- ab289426 Human CRBN knockout MCF7 cell line and ab244223 Anti-CRBN antibody [4D6]; 17- ab265563 Human GLA (Galactosidase alpha) knockout HeLa cell line and ab168341 Anti-Galactosidase alpha antibody [EP5828(2)]; 18- ab289186 Human CRBN knockout HCT116 cell line and ab244223 Anti-CRBN antibody [4D6].

Antibody pairs

A pair of antibodies targeting distinct regions of the same antigen, which work in synergy together as capture and detector reagents, are essential for performing quantitative analysis of your protein of interest using sandwich ELISA. We have a proven track record of developing antibody pairs with high specificity for highly sensitive assays, which generate reliable and reproducible results. We identify compatible antibodies to be prioritized early in the custom workflow, with high-throughput epitope binning on Octet BLI using crude antibody supernatant. Candidate pairs can then be validated in a number of ways to ensure selection of the highest performing pair. Pair validation can include:

• Antibody orientation in sandwich format
• Matrix tolerance testing (spike recovery)
• LoD/ LoQ analysis
• Capture/detect

Pair identification on antibody supernatant using Octet BLI: Magnitude of shift (red circle) between bottom line and top line estimates suitability of clones as pairs

A: Non-functional pair

B: Functional pair

Matrix tolerance testing on top pair candidates (human and NHP serum): High performing antibody pair identified

• MRK of 10% at 50 ng/ml
• LoQ of 12 ng/ml of target IgG

Examples of high performing matched antibody pairs

1- ab210890 Mouse Albumin Matched Antibody Pair Kit; 2- ab216064 Human Pro-Collagen I alpha 1 Matched Antibody Pair Kit; 3- ab218182 Human IRAK4 Matched Antibody Pair Kit; 4- ab241839 Human/Monkey IL-8 Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 5- ab241862 Human Lipoprotein A Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 6- ab241906 Mouse Hemoglobin subunit alpha Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 7- ab244094 Human/Mouse GFAP Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 8- ab244174 Human Surfactant protein D / SP-D Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 9- ab246838 Human IL-6 Matched Antibody Pair Kit; 10- ab253332 Human CD200R Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free (CD200R1); 11- ab253419 EPO Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 12- ab253424 Human CA125 Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free (MUC16); 13- ab253633 Human Synapsin I Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 14- ab256632 Human alpha 1 Acid Glycoprotein Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 15- ab256708 Human Progranulin Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 16- ab267690 Human LRG (LRG1) Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 17- ab270349 Human CEA Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 18- ab290698 Human MX1 Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 19- ab300183 Cofilin-1 Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free; 20- ab300722 Calcineurin B/PPP3R1 Antibody Pair - BSA and Azide free

Custom conjugation

Save time and simplify your experimental protocols by using a directly labeled primary antibody. We can provide you with comprehensive labeling solutions to allow your antibody to detect the target of interest without the need for a secondary antibody.

Labels include fluorescent dyes, enzymes, oligonucleotides and gold nanoparticles. Your choice of label will depend on your experimental application – for example flow cytometry, multiplex imaging, immunohistochemistry, ELISA-based assays, immuno-PCR, proximity ligation assay lateral flow assays.

Examples of high conjugated primary antibodies

1- ab185048 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-Cytokeratin 7 antibody [EPR1619Y] - Cytoskeleton Marker; 2- ab190195 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-NeuN antibody [EPR12763] - Neuronal Marker; 3- ab192467 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-Cytokeratin 8 antibody [EP1628Y]; 4- ab192643 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-Cytokeratin 19 antibody [EP1580Y]; 5- ab193894 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-Cytokeratin 5 antibody [EP1601Y]; 6- ab193895 Alexa Fluor® 647 Anti-Cytokeratin 5 antibody [EP1601Y]; 7- ab194124 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-Cytokeratin 18 antibody [E431-1]; 8- ab195020 Alexa Fluor® 647 Anti-Glucose Transporter GLUT1 antibody [EPR3915]; 9- ab195359 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-Glucose Transporter GLUT1 antibody [EPR3915]; 10- ab196158 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-Calreticulin antibody [EPR3924] - ER Marker; 11- ab196159 Alexa Fluor® 647 Anti-Calreticulin antibody [EPR3924] - ER Marker; 12- ab197608 Alexa Fluor® 647 Anti-Brd4 antibody [EPR5150(2)]; 13- ab209478 PE Rabbit IgG, monoclonal [EPR25A] - Isotype Control; 14- ab209577 PE Anti-Calreticulin antibody [EPR3924] - ER Marker; 15- ab209959 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-PD-L1 antibody [28-8]; 16- ab209960 Alexa Fluor® 647 Anti-PD-L1 antibody [28-8] - Extracellular domain; 17- ab209962 PE Anti-PD-L1 antibody [28-8]; 18- ab210152 Alexa Fluor® 405 Anti-Vimentin antibody [EPR3776] - Cytoskeleton Marker; 19- ab222914 Alexa Fluor® 488 Anti-CD68 antibody [KP1]; 20- ab237396 Alexa Fluor® 647 Anti-EpCAM antibody [EPR20532-225]

The foundation of any successful antibody generation programme is a high-quality immunogen and an appropriate, well-thought-out immunization strategy.

Our team of experts can help with selection of the appropriate immunogen and immunization regime – including different protocol lengths, boost schedules, conjugations, use of adjuvants, and combination of immunogens in combined or alternating schedules.

We also support the production of high-quality immunogens for those not already available to ensure the best possible start to your project.

We engage in a comprehensive target evaluation exercise at the beginning of all programmes to ensure selection of the most appropriate immunogen for your target type and downstream experimental needs. Our in-house teams are experienced with generation of multiple types of immunogens including protein, peptides, and overexpressing cell lines. Bacterial and viral immunogens have also been successfully employed, subject to safety assessment.

Designed in-house by our team of experts, peptide immunogens target the immune response to areas of key selectivity and high antigenicity for generation of highly selective antibodies. Protein sequence is analysed in silico and a range of criteria are utilized to select unique, highly immunogenic and accessible areas which are likely to contain B and T cell epitopes. Due to the unique immunological processes within the rabbit immune system, multiple distinct peptide immunogen sequences can be used within a single animal to increase the number and diversity of antibodies obtained. Following selection of peptides, we provide high-quality peptide (conjugated to appropriate carrier proteins) for use within your custom programme.

When it comes to protein immunogens, immunization with full-length protein provides maximal exposure of available epitopes to the host animal immune system in a more natively folded format. High-quality protein immunogens – either full length or fragments – can be generated by our in-house proteins team using a variety of expression systems, including mammalian, bacteria, yeast or insect cells.

Overexpressing cell lines can be used as immunogens for cell membrane proteins where the presentation of the protein in its physiological membrane-spanning conformation can be beneficial to the project. Our in-house cell engineering team produces overexpressing cell lines with high-copy number, suitable for immunization and screening. Immunization with overexpressing cell lines can be combined with alternating protein and/ or peptide boosts where appropriate.