How long does it take to generate monoclonal antibodies from scratch?
If you already have a purified antigen, it generally takes about 5 months, depending primarily on how many times you have to boost mice to get a good immune response. The various steps and associated considerations are outlined in the flow diagram under Technical Resources. In a typical project, immunization takes 2 months. Another month is required for fusion and screening. Positive clones are usually subcloned twice, which requires another 4 – 6 weeks. Sometime animals have to be immunized a 3rd time if the animals respond poorly to the target antigen, which adds a month to the overall time. For many labs, the main obstacle is in fact the preparation of the antigen itself. Click here for information on the initial generation and purification of antigens and related issues. Because of the time required to make monoclonals, it is worth weighing the pro’s and con’s of generating monoclonal versus polyclonal antibodies. In general, the specificity and unlimited availability of monoclonal
