Epitope fingerprinting is a rapid service that can be tailored to meet customer requirements.
Besides arranging confidentiality agreements and individual service contracts, if required, a typical project can be divided into the following stages.
Project Design: Before getting started a project plan will be explained and tailored to individual projects. EPITOPIC provides consulting on potential requirements for antibodies as well as possible variants of selections to study epitopes under different conditions, such as pH or salt concentration. If your organization is not familiar with shipments, EPITOPIC will also care about the preparations required for sample shipments and help with the necessary documents required.
Data Generation: This is the first and crucial step in a project. After receiving the samples, selection experiments are carried out and datasets of peptides are generated within one to four weeks. These must meet stringent quality criteria for further analysis. If not, the customer is informed of how to improve, for example, sample quality.
Data Analysis: Epitope fingerprinting, based on statistical data from stable antibodies with well-defined epitopes, is a matter of days. This usually includes additional analyses based on existing structures and specificity for variants (species) of antigens. During data analysis, EPITOPIC provides regular updates, particularly when the task exceeds the standard identification of epitope fingerprints.
Report: A full report is delivered, and we are, of course, willing to help in understanding the details and may also help with additional data analysis and interpretation.
Data & More: Scientific institutions and customers familiar with protein design and molecular modelling are often interested in receiving datasets containing preselected peptide sequences. This and other information, as well as support in handling the information when preparing legal and scientific documents, are usually provided after the completion of the project.