Aves Labs, Inc.

If you are supplying us with ready-to-inject antigen (e.g., recombinant protein):

All you need to do is to ship us the antigen, along with a copy of our Polyclonal Antibody Production Order Form. For research scale production (i.e., two hens), we suggest 4.0 mg of protein in a total volume of 4.0 mls of PBS or TBS (i.e., 1.0 mg/ml). It is best if the protein is placed in four 1.0 ml aliquots and frozen on dry ice. If you only have a precious amount of protein, we can probably get by with a concentration of 0.5 mg/ml.

If your ready-to-inject antigen is in a buffer solution other than PBS or TBS:

Please be sure that the buffer does not contain high concentrations of urea (greater than 0.5 M), SDS (greater than 1% (w/v), imidazole (greater than 10 mM), EDTA/EGTA (greater than 100 mM), or sodium azide (greater than 0.01%), as all of these agents are irritants and may cause the hens to cease egg production.

If you would like us to affinity purify the antibodies:

We request that you send an additional 5 mg of antigen in PBS. Since we use primary amine chemistry to conjugate most proteins to matrix, these preparations must not contain any Tris buffer, which interferes with this chemistry.

If you are supplying us with peptide:

We will need to conjugate the peptide to a carrier protein such as keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH). Please include sequence information to help us choose the best solubilization strategy. We require 8-10 mg of peptide for conjugation to carrier protein, and another 8-10 mg of peptide for conjugation to affinity matrix.

If you have any questions about these or other chemicals in your antigen preparations, please feel free to contact us.