Our Mission
Only around 1/3 of commercially available antibodies serve their desired purposes¹.
We created this company because we understand the frustrations that come with antibodies that don't work. Our goal is to provide you with only antibodies and other reagents and services that you know are real and will work.
Our Platform
At GenuIN Biotechnologies, our ShGE™ gene silencing platform enables us to perform high-throughput and low-cost antibody validation. Our platform is built on a uniquely optimized biotechnology that sets us apart — no other solution matches its performance or design.
Our platform is based on lentivirus-mediated delivery of short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) to silence gene expression and reduce corresponding protein levels. This generates a reliable negative control for assessing antibody specificity. An antibody is considered specific if it produces a detectable signal in positive control cells, but that signal is absent or significantly diminished in gene-silenced cells.
Why shRNA knockdown?
Genetic verification is considered a gold standard for antibody validation, according to the International Working Group of Antibody Validation (IGWAV). Among genetic approaches, gene knockout (KO) at the genomic level and gene knockdown (KD) at the mRNA level using small interference RNA (siRNA) and short hairpin RNA (shRNA) techniques have been widely used for antibody validation.
We choose shRNA because compared to KO and siRNA approaches, shRNA KD offers the following benefits: 1) lentiviral shRNA can be stably integrated into a cell’s genome and result in a more complete knockdown compared to siRNA; 2) It is particularly powerful for difficult-to-target and nondividing cells; 3) It knocks down rather than knocks out a gene, so it is particularly useful for the study of genes vital to cell survival.
At GenuIN, our goal is to continue to increase the number of KD-validated antibodies we can offer. Along the way, our gene silencing platform gives us lentivirus, cell line, and cell lysate libraries that we can use to provide additional, high quality products and services.
Read more about the problem
of poor antibodies ruining experiments,
and how GenuIN is working to be a solution.
1. Kwon, D. (2024, November 7). The Quest to Rid Labs of the Reagents That Ruin Experiments. Nature, 635, 26-28.
Setting the GenuIN Standard
GenuIN Standard for General Antibody:
A high-quality antibody should meet the following criteria:
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High Specificity: A high-quality antibody must exhibit strong specificity toward its target antigen to ensure accuracy and reliability in experimental applications.
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Specificity Validation: An antibody is considered to have good specificity if it generates clear and reproducible signals in positive cells or tissues, while the same signal is significantly reduced or completely absent in negative control samples, such as gene knockdown (KD) or knockout (KO) models.
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Context-Dependent Specificity: Antibody specificity is context-dependent. An antibody that demonstrates specificity in Western blotting (WB) may not necessarily do so in immunocytochemistry (IC) or flow cytometry (FCM), and vice versa. Therefore, antibody specificity must be independently validated for each intended application.
GenuIN Standard for PTM Antibody:
High-specificity PTM antibodies must meet the following two criteria:
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Under conditions where the target protein expression is reduced or ablated via gene knockdown (KD) or knockout (KO), the antibody detection signal should be significantly diminished or completely absent, confirming the antibody’s high specificity for the target protein.
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When the amino acid residue at the modification site is mutated to a non-modifiable residue (e.g., substitution with alanine), the antibody recognition signal should be entirely abolished, validating its specificity for the particular post-translational modification site.
