© ISTOCK.COM/TECHNOTR; BADGE COURTESY OF SCIENCE EXCHANGEStephan Lange had his figures all ready for the manuscript when he decided to double-check his antibody. The University of California, San Diego, cell biologist stained tissue samples from a mouse missing the G-protein–coupled receptor he was interested in, figuring the antibody wouldn’t give him a signal.
But it did. He cut the figure based on that antibody from his manuscript. The rest of the story stood, though it was a bit less interesting for the loss, Lange said.
Lange is far from alone in his disappointment. Antibodies are some of the most commonly used and commonly flawed reagents in biology labs, and pricey, too. Lange points out that the typical commercial antibody—at, say, $200–500 for 100 micrograms, or $2,000–5,000 per gram—costs more than gold ($35.29 per gram as of Jan 12, 2016). But scientists say there’s a lot of fool’s gold in them thar antibody catalogs. In one study of more than 5,000 commercial antibodies, only half worked in both Western blotting and immunohistochemistry (Mol Cell Proteomics, 7:2019-27, 2008). Some researchers ...
