FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and Useful Links
Q: I ordered a lyophilized antibody and it was shipped to me without ice. When I opened the package, the vial was warm to the touch. According to the label on the vial, the antibody should be stored under -15C. Will this antibody still work?
A: Proteins in antibodies become crystals when lyophilized and are therefore extremely stable. Lyophilized products do not need to be kept frozen or cool during shipping. In fact we performed a test in which we baked a lyophilized antibody in an oven, and upon reconstitution it worked fine. However, we recommend storing lyophilized antibodies frozen for the purpose of long term storage in the event that it helps maintain the shelf life.
Q: I recently purchased the Glucagon Antibody. I realize that the antibody has not been purified and is in whole serum. However, would it be possible to tell me an approximate IgG content for this product?
A: The Glucagon Antibody and most of ImmunoStar's other antibodies are provided as whole serum, i.e. antibodies in normal rabbit serum. Protein concentration is a more meaningful measure for affinity purified antibodies, which are antibodies removed from the whole serum and usually provided in a buffer matrix. If you measure the protein concentration of affinity purified antibodies, you have a measure of how much antibody is in the vial. If you measure the protein concentration of whole serum, you get a number that reflects all of the protein, not just antibody. Of the total protein, the actual Glucagon antibody is a small proportion, so unlike affinity antibodies, the measure does not provide useful information.
Q: What is the difference between ImmunoStar and INCSTAR?
A: ImmunoStar products were purchased from DiaSorin in 2001. DiaSorin previously purchased the product line from INCSTAR. Many of the antibodies sold today by ImmunoStar are the same antibodies sold by INCSTAR years ago. Any reference to antibodies provided by Incstar, DiaSorin, or ImmunoStar are referring to the same antibody product line.
Q: Do you sell trial sizes?
A: ImmunoStar no longer sells sample sizes of its antibodies.
Q: Would you be able to tell me which secondary antibody could be used with Cat # 20080 for histochemistry analysis of serotonin (rabbit)?
A: Please refer to the Instruction Manual for detailed protocol suggestions that apply to all of the antibodies:
Useful Links
BioMedNet & MEDLINE: Latest research updates and abstracts: http://www.bmn.com/
PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
Swiss-Prot Protein Knowledgebase is an annotated protein sequence database: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/swissprot/access.html/
The Official Journal for the Society of Neuroscience. http://www.jneurosci.org/