Secondary Antibody

Secondary antibodies provide signal detection and amplification along with extending the utility of an antibody through conjugation to proteins.[1] Secondary antibodies are especially efficient in immunolabeling. Secondary antibodies bind to primary antibodies, which are directly bound to the target antigen(s). In immunolabeling, the primary antibody’s Fab domain binds to an antigen and exposes its Fc domain to secondary antibody. Then, the secondary antibody’s Fab domain binds to the primary antibody’s Fc domain. Since the Fc domain is constant within the same animal class, only one type of secondary antibody is required to bind to many types of primary antibodies. This reduces the cost by labeling only one type of secondary antibody, rather than labeling various types of primary antibodies. Secondary antibodies help increase sensitivity and signal amplification due to multiple secondary antibodies binding to a primary antibody.