Maltose Binding Protein (MBP) Epitope Tag Antibody

Epitope tags are short peptide sequences that are easily recognized by tag-specific antibodies. Due to their small size, epitope tags do not affect the tagged protein’s biochemical properties. Most often sequences encoding the epitope tag are included with target DNA at the time of cloning to produce fusion proteins containing the epitope tag sequence. This allows anti-epitope tag antibodies to serve as universal detection reagents for any tag containing protein produced by recombinant means. This means that anti-epitope tag antibodies are a useful alternative to generating specific antibodies to identify, immunoprecipitate or immunoaffinity purify a recombinant protein. The anti-epitope tag antibody is usually functional in a variety of antibody-dependent experimental procedures. Expression vectors producing epitope tag fusion proteins are available for a variety of host expression systems including bacteria, yeast, insect and mammalian cells. Rockland Immunochemicals produces anti-epitope tag antibodies against many common epitope tags including Myc, GST, GFP, 6X His, MBP, FLAG and HA. Rockland Immunochemicals also produces antibodies to other tags including FITC, Rhodamine (TRITC) , DNP and biotin. Anti-MBP is optimally suited for monitoring the expression of MBP tagged fusion proteins. As such, anti-MBP/MBP can be used to identify fusion proteins containing the MBP epitope. The antibody recognizes the MBP epitope tag fused to the amino- or carboxy- termini of targeted proteins. This antibody has been tested by ELISA and western blotting against MBP containing recombinant proteins. Although not tested, this antibody is likely functional for immunoprecipitation and immunocytochemistry, and other immunodetection techniques. Maltose binding protein is a bacterial protein, which is often used in protein expression studies because it creates a stable fusion product that does not appear to interfere with the bioactivity of the protein of interest. It also allows for its easy purification from bacterial extracts under mild conditions. Anti-MBP is a companion to the pMAL protein expression system and can be used for the detection and purification of MBP-fusion proteins expressed in E. coli. By Western blot, a band is seen at ~ 42 kDa representing MBP.