∞ generated and posted on 2016.01.12 ∞
Polyclonal antibody formed by vaccinating non-human animals with human antibody.
It is possible to generate antibody to nearly all proteins that are foreign to an animal. This can include proteins that the animal already possess, but as obtained from a different species. Since immunoglobulins, i.e., antibodies, are proteins, and also proteins that differ in their basic form between species, it is straightforward to vaccinate species with the antibody derived from a different species to literally raise anti-antibody antibodies.
To generate antihuman serum, i.e., polyclonal antibodies that target human antibodies, one simply purifies human antibodies and then vaccinate some other animal species, such as mice or rabbits. The result is what can be described as mouse anti-human antibody or rabbit anti-human antibody. It is also quite straightforward to produce mouse anti-rabbit antibody or rabbit anti-mouse antibody, etc.
The utility of using antibody that has been raised against antibody stems from antibody tagging, whether fluorescently for fluorescent antibody techniques or with enzymes for indirect ELISAs, etc. This way a more versatile antibody can be so tagged rather than the antibody that is employed for its specificity for a given antigen, which is more convenient than individually tagging multiple antibody types.
With antihuman immune serum globulin, one can employ human-sourced antibody in various serological tests, and then visualize that antibody by employing the appropriately tagged anti-human immune serum globulin.