Question:

Hi. I had a question regarding chicken antibodies. I noticed on your website that chicken antibodies do not activate human complement. I was wondering if the same holds true for other species, namely if chicken antibodies will also not activate complement from rats. We are considering using chicken antibodies in one of our rat experiments.

Resolution:

While we do not have data to answer this question, the expectation would be that that the rat complement system would NOT be activated by the chicken antibody. This expectation is based upon sequence homology between the human and the rat.

There is an evolving Rat Genome project at http://rgd.mcw.edu that may help to answer your question more fully.

Ultimately, the answer is found in your own system, using chicken antibody with controls in place for complement activation. We'd be glad to send you some non-relevant purified chicken IgY to try if it helps. Just send us your address and your Federal Express account number and we'll send you some.