An assessment of histone-modification antibody quality.
We have tested the specificity and utility of more than 200 antibodies raised against 57 different histone modifications in Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans and human cells. Although most antibodies performed well, more than 25% failed specificity tests by dot blot or western blot. Among specific antibodies, more than 20% failed in chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments. We advise rigorous testing of histone-modification antibodies before use, and we provide a website for posting new test results (http://compbio.med.harvard.edu/antibodies/).
Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA.
Thea A
TA
Egelhofer
Aki
A
Minoda
Sarit
S
Klugman
Kyungjoon
K
Lee
Paulina
P
Kolasinska-Zwierz
Artyom A
AA
Alekseyenko
Ming-Sin
MS
Cheung
Daniel S
DS
Day
Sarah
S
Gadel
Andrey A
AA
Gorchakov
Tingting
T
Gu
Peter V
PV
Kharchenko
Samantha
S
Kuan
Isabel
I
Latorre
Daniela
D
Linder-Basso
Ying
Y
Luu
Queminh
Q
Ngo
Marc
M
Perry
Andreas
A
Rechtsteiner
Nicole C
NC
Riddle
Yuri B
YB
Schwartz
Gregory A
GA
Shanower
Anne
A
Vielle
Julie
J
Ahringer
Sarah C R
SC
Elgin
Mitzi I
MI
Kuroda
Vincenzo
V
Pirrotta
Bing
B
Ren
Susan
S
Strome
Peter J
PJ
Park
Gary H
GH
Karpen
R David
RD
Hawkins
Jason D
JD
Lieb
D000818:Animals; D000906:Antibodies / Q000737:chemistry; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D015153:Blotting, Western; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D047369:Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics; D006657:Histones / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D015151:Immunoblotting; D011499:Protein Processing, Post-Translational; D011786:Quality Control; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
D000906:Antibodies; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D006657:Histones