YCharOS antibody characterization data is now linked from the CiteAb antibody search engine!
5
Min Read
In this blog:
- Who are YCharOS?
- How can you access YCharOS antibody characterization data on CiteAb?
- How will this help accelerate your research?
We are excited to announce that YCharOS characterization reports for commercially available reagent antibodies are now linked to on the CiteAb search engine.
By linking from YCharOS data to CiteAb product pages, we aim to make it more easily accessible.
Using this data can help to give you greater confidence the antibody you are purchasing is selective and specific to your target, in the application you are using.
But remember, we suggest you always also validate antibodies in your own experimental set up. You can read our guide on how to select antibodies here.
Who are YCharOS?
YCharOS (antibody characterization through Open Science) are a Canadian, public interest, open science company committed to characterising commercially available reagent antibodies for every human protein.
They harness what many researchers consider to be the gold standard for antibody characterisation, KO validation testing, to generate data on antibodies against popular targets from a range of reagent supplier partners.
They currently test these antibodies in immunoblot, immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence.
To date, they have produced reports covering antibodies against 82 genes which they post to Zenodo before peer-review and publication on F1000.
You can find out more about them here: https://ycharos.com/
How has YCharOS data been added into our antibody search engine?
Now, if you’re using CiteAb to find research antibodies for your experiments you can see if an YCharOS antibody characterization report is available.
You can then access the corresponding antibody characterization data directly from the search engine.
We are also applying our proprietary AI-driven data collecting pipeline to their F1000 publications so you can view high quality antibody characterization images and experimental details in CiteAb search results.
How will this help in my research?
Assessing characterization data ahead of any experiments is essential to give you greater confidence in the reproducibility and reliability of results.
Here is a paper to support new users detailing how to select antibodies based on the YCharOS characterization reports: https://f1000research.com/articles/12-1344
Using antibodies that haven’t been validated against your target and in your application can have significant ramifications.
One paper demonstrated how an exciting new field centred around oestrogen receptor β was derailed due to the use of unvalidated antibodies [1]. A group used characterization tests to show that 13 common antibodies used in the field were in fact not specific in IHC, invalidating previous studies. There are many more examples showcasing the importance of antibody specificity and the impact on experimental work [2].
However, we know it is time consuming to scour the internet for multiple sources of data in order to make an informed decision when buying antibodies.
That’s why we were really excited to add the YCharOS report links on our product pages – to help speed up the process of assessing quality, independent characterization data.
Ultimately, we hope this helps you to improve the reproducibility of your experiments by choosing the right antibodies for your work, without taking up lots of valuable lab time.
Are there any resources you’d like to see in the search engine?
If there’s any resources you love to use, or have produced, that you’d like to see linked from the CiteAb search engine, do get in touch!
We’ve recently added ACT Environmental Impact Labels, published by My Green Lab, onto the search engine. These links sit alongside the YCharOS reports on product pages. So, if you have a database that you think would benefit researchers and would fit on the CiteAb site, we would love to have a conversation with you.
- Skye and the CiteAb team
References
1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28643774/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6794092/