Latex Conjugation Kit – 400nm Blue (ab269947) allows antibodies or proteins to be conjugated to our high quality 400 nm latex nanoparticles quickly and easily. The latex nanoparticles are designed for ease of use and have much improved handling compared with traditional latex. This has been achieved by specially treating the nanoparticles. The conjugation is covalent, and requires less antibody than traditional passive and covalent latex conjugation.

This product is manufactured by Expedeon, an Abcam company. It was previously called 400nm Blue Latex Conjugation Kit. Expedeon product code 1000-0120 (1 reaction midi kit) is the same as the 40 µg size of this product.

The 400 nm blue latex nanoparticles in this kit are freeze dried. The conjugation reaction is initiated simply by reconstituting the dry mixture with your antibody, which becomes attached (via lysine residues) to the specially treated surface.

It takes 30 seconds to set up the conjugation, the hands-on time for the conjugation procedure is about 3 minutes and the conjugate is ready to use within 35 minutes. You simply pipette the biomolecule into a vial containing the latex nanoparticles, then centrifuge to buffer exchange.

The resulting covalent conjugates can be easily resuspended without the need for harsh methods such as sonication or vortexing, unlike traditional conjugation procedures which are prone to aggregation.

This is due to the properties of the surface treatment which makes the particles resistant to aggregation.

Additionally, unlike passive methods, the conjugation procedure has only a weak dependence on the isoelectric point of the antibody. Consequently, extensive trials at different pH values are not required; all antibodies can be conjugated at one of two pHs, both of which are supplied in this kit (Reaction Buffers A and B).

We would suggest that the antibody to be conjugated should be in 10 – 50 mM MES, HEPES or MOPS at pH 6 – 7 (with no other components e.g. salt or azide) before conjugation.

For incompatible buffers and low antibody concentrations, use our rapid antibody purification and concentration kits. Use the FAQ to learn more about the technology, or about conjugating other proteins and peptides to latex nanoparticles.