how to determine whether an expired monoclonal antibody is still effective?
Dear Dhiraj Narendra Mishra
in many cases expiration data are just indicative.
mabs is well conserved can work for years.
However it depends from the assay thay you would like to do with it.
ELISA? FACS? WB? The easiest way is just perfom a preliminary experiment with a positive control.
You can also check it in SDS-page in reducing and non reducing condition to see if it is degraded or not, but this asay do not show in case you have some aggregation that may reduce its functionality, therefore in my opinion a positive control with a binding assay is preferable.
best regards
Manuele
Just try it, ideally including a positive control. Antibodies can can be effective far beyond their somewhat-arbitrary expiration dates.
The so-called expiration dates are the date until when the manufacturer warrants that the product will be fine for its intended purpose and will have to replace it FOC if it should not perform as promised. It is either determined by legal provisions or by stability tests.
As these dates obviously need to be very conservative, expect the product to be in the best working condition, as long as it was appropriately stored and treated. If in doubt, test its functionality (what one should do anyway in the course of QA).
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