Matched Pair Antibodies

When designing an ELISA it is crucial to select antibodies that will complement each other in a Sandwich ELISA format. Matched pair antibodies have undergone testing to validate their use with specific targets.

  • Antibodies bind to different epitopes, no overlap and spatially separated. To help overcome this the use of a combination of monoclonals and polyclonals can be beneficial.
  • Important to know the epitopes of each antibody, particularly if using 2 monoclonals.
  • Use the antibody with the higher affinity as the capture to drag more of the antigen down into the wells.
  • Use of the same antibody for capture and detection is known as a self sandwich ELISA this will only work for large target molecules displaying many epitopes spaced out.