Monoclonal antibodies are defined by the fact that they are derived from single B cell clones, which means that every antibody within the same preparation recognizes the same epitope. This feature of monoclonal antibodies gives them several advantages for scientific research, including a high specificity for their antigenic targets. Compared to using polyclonal antibodies, which exhibit varying specificities to multiple epitopes, the use of monoclonal antibodies greatly reduces the risk of cross-reactivity with non-target proteins. Other advantages of monoclonal antibodies are their consistent experimental performance and unlimited long-term supply. When monoclonal antibodies were first reported by Kohler and Milstein in 1975, they were produced in mice via hybridoma technology. The original methodology involved immunizing mice with sheep red blood cells before extracting the spleen from each animal and fusing the antibody-producing B lymphocytes with an immortal myeloma cell line. By incubating the cells in hypoxanthine aminopterin thymidine (HAT) medium for up to two weeks following fusion, it was possible to ensure that only the hybridomas survived. The hybridomas were then transferred to microtiter plates via the limiting dilution method and the expressed antibodies screened by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to identify the best-performing clones. Hybridoma technology has since been extended to other species, including rats, hamsters, and rabbits, to address common monoclonal antibody production challenges. Notably, using rats allows for monoclonal antibodies to be generated against murine proteins, as well as against targets that have low immunogenicity in mice. However, applying classical hybridoma technology in rats has proven difficult due to the lack of a stable fusion partner and the inefficiency of producing high-quality or large-scale rat monoclonal antibodies from ascites or culture supernatants. For these reasons, alternative approaches to rat monoclonal antibody production have been developed, including methods based on phage display and biopanning. Rat monoclonal antibodies are widely used for many different research applications, including Western Blotting (WB), Immunohistochemistry (IHC), and Flow Cytometry. Importantly, the availability of rat monoclonal antibodies can offer increased flexibility for multiplexed experiments that will use secondary antibodies for indirect detection. When performing these types of experiments, it is critical to ensure that the selected secondary antibody reagents have been cross-adsorbed against the host species of the other primary antibodies being used in the same panel to avoid generating false-positive results. Explore our range of rat monoclonal antibodies below and discover more, for less. Alternatively, you can explore our range of mouse monoclonal antibodies, rabbit monoclonal antibodies, and recombinant monoclonal antibodies.