Expression of transgenes in complex organisms is accompanied by the need for a specific and sensitive detection of a target protein. One familiar approach is the use of a protein-specific antibody. However, antibodies raised against to your protein of interest may not always be available, are often costly or time-consuming to produce, and are usually not target specific (1). Moreover antibodies are often not suitable for several applications and immunohistochemical detection is a frequent bottleneck. These drawbacks can be overcome by the use of epitope tagging.
WB analysis of V5 tagged protein.
The fusion of an immunoreactive epitope tag to a protein provides the possibility to detect any transgene product in a very specific and sensitive manner with well-characterized commercially available antibodies. The performance of an epitope tag in a detection experiment is dependent not only on the epitope used but also on the anti-epitope antibody (2). The selection of the optimal tag/antibody combination is complicated and depends on the target protein and the application. The large variety of combinations allows selecting the appropriate tag/anti-tag antibody for a particular application. In a recent study using various antibody tags it has been demonstrated that the V5 tag is preferable for for immunohistochemical analysis of the brain tissue as compared to other antibody tags in vivo (3). The V5 tags have also been successful in protein purification as well.
Novus Biologicals offers V5 tag reagents, including:
