conjugation of r-phycoerythrin to a polyclonal antibody and f (ab')2 fragment of a polyclonal antibody by two different methods

r-phycoerythrin (r-pe), a fluorescent protein from phycobiliprotein family, is isolated from red algae. conjugation of antibodies to r-pe facilitates multiple fluorescent staining methods. in the present study polyclonal antibodies and polyclonal f(ab')2 fragment antibodies were conjugated to r-pe by two different methods. the efficiency of the methods was evaluated using immunocytochemistry (icc) and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page). in the first conjugation method, pe was attached to smcc linker followed by conjugation of antibody to pe-smcc. in the second method, sh groups were added onto r-pe molecule, while the antibody was attached to spdp linker. then, the antibody-spdp molecule was conjugated to r-pe. our results showed that the two conjugation methods did not have any abrogative effects on the antibody binding activity.