Frequently Asked Questions

What differentiates GenuIN Biotech from other competitors in the antibody market?

At GenuIN, we screen all our antibodies before they reach you. Whereas other antibody suppliers may only have a percentage of antibodies that will work as said, you can trust that 100% of the antibodies on our website will work as said. In this way, we are trying to be a trustworthy source and raise the standard in an antibody market that has a lot of poor reagents. To validate our antibodies, we use shRNA knockdown (KD) as a genetic method to down-regulate protein expression and show antibodies specificity in selectivity through the following principle: if the band appears when the protein exists but disappears when the protein does not exist, the antibody can be considered high quality (we call this the "Yes-yes, No-no" principle). Other companies may use the knockout (KO) genetic method validation, but we are able to cover more targets and therefore, more antibodies, with our knockdown method. In this area of knockdown validation, we are a forerunner; there is no one else who does it at the scale and efficiency that we have achieved. Our goal is to translate that into becoming a forerunner of providing high-quality antibodies in the scientific research field.​

What percentage of antibodies in the market have passed your rigorous testing?

In Western blotting, if a band at the expected size can be detected by an antibody in wild-type (WT) cell lysates but disappears or significantly diminishes in gene-silenced cell lysates, the antibody is considered to be specific. Similarly, if an antibody can stain the WT cells (as indicated by strong fluorescent signals), but the signals are either lost or significantly reduced in gene-silenced cells, this antibody is deemed specific in immunofluorescence (IF) or flow cytometry (F) applications. Based on our criteria, an average of 30% antibodies tested are specific for use in Western blotting. When it comes to immunocytochemistry and immunofluorescence (IC-IF) or flow cytometry (F), only 20% of antibodies are specific.​

We provide human shRNA lentiviral particles to facilitate your mechanism research. Using our proprietary lentiviral platform, we have designed and tested the specificity of these viruses using Western blotting, immunocytochemical staining, or flow cytometry. What you need to do is to put the viral medium onto your cultured cells and select the cells to be 100% pure with an antibiotic known as puromycin. Additionally, you will obtain a stable cell line with your gene/protein of interest knocked down. The benefit for you is that we validate the specificity of these viruses so that you don’t need to do it all out of scratches, saving your resources, and above all, your time.

Do we have to use your reagents together with your antibodies in our experiments?

At certain critical points, we strongly recommend using our reagents. Our experiences show that certain proteins in the whole cell lysate are at picogram and even femtogram levels. Detecting these proteins in Western blotting using regular ECL reagents is a seemingly impossible task. In this case, our custom PiQ (Cat#636) or FeQ (Cat#226) ECL reagents can detect picogram- and femtogram-level proteins, respectively. Second, we recommend you always use our FadeStop fluorescence mounting medium (Cat#270) or FadeStop fluorescence mounting medium with DAPI (Cat#272, to counterstain nuclei) in immunofluorescent staining. These antifade fluorescence mounting media have passed our testing and can preserve fluorescence after two months when stored at -20°C or after as many as twelve laser scans using a confocal microscope. Finally, we recommend using our IntactProteinTM Cell Lysis Kit (Cat#415) to extract whole cell lysates from cultured mammalian cells. This kit is particularly formulated to maintain the integrity as well as the signal moiety (such as phosphorylation) of all sizes of proteins. Since this kit avoids sonication, it protects proteins, particularly large-sized proteins (> 100 kDa), from fragmentation.        

Can I use an antibody for applications other than those stated in your data sheet?

Yes, but we cannot guarantee that it will work. Our antibodies are only tested for use in Western blotting (WB), immunocytochemistry and immunofluorescence (IC-IF), and flow cytometry (F) applications. However, it is highly probable that these validated antibodies can be used in other applications.