How is BSA-Peptide conjugation useful?
Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is a commonly used carrier protein in the conjugation of peptides for antibody production. Albumins make up about half of the protein in plasma and are the most stable and soluble proteins in plasma. It is very popular with laboratories developing immunoassays, mostly due to its availability, solubility and the numerous functional groups present for coupling to heptans. When compared to KLH, another common carrier, the molecular weight of BSA is much smaller. However, BSA is much more soluble and immunogenic. It contains 59 lysines, 30-35 as primary amines capable of reacting with conjugation sites of linkers. It is a popular carrier for weakly antigenic compounds. BSA can be used to block nonspecific binding sites in many immunochemical experiments such as ELISA, immunoblotting and immunohistochemical studies. It may be used as a non-relevant protein in enzyme immunoassays. KLH cannot be used for this because the anti-KLH antibodies, which formed during immu
