Alexa Fluor®-conjugated anti-pig primary antibodies are fluorescent immunoreagents that combine the exceptional brightness and photostability of the Alexa Fluor dye family with immunoglobulins that directly bind porcine (swine) antigens. This direct labeling enables single-step immunophenotyping and tissue analysis in a species whose immunological toolbox has historically been less developed than that of humans or mice. The pig is a major agricultural species and an increasingly important large-animal model for translational medicine and xenotransplantation, making validated anti-pig reagents essential for characterizing porcine immune cell subsets and tissue architecture.
Applications
Alexa Fluor-conjugated anti-pig primary antibodies are validated primarily for flow cytometry, where they enable direct immunophenotyping of porcine leukocyte subsets without requiring a secondary reagent. Representative targets include CD3ε (clone PPT3), which identifies all pig T lymphocytes; CD4 (clones 74-12-4 and b38c6c7), which recognizes a ~55 kDa porcine homologue of human CD4 on T helper cells; CD11c (clone 3A8), which distinguishes resident from migrating dendritic cells in lymph nodes; and CD172a (clone BL1H7), which identifies porcine monocytes for subsequent analysis of monocyte subsets based on CD14 and SLA II expression. Multicolor panels combining Alexa Fluor 647 anti-pig CD4 with PE-conjugated anti-pig CD3ε have been used to resolve correlated CD4 and CD3 expression on pig peripheral blood lymphocytes.
Beyond flow cytometry, these conjugates support immunohistochemistry on frozen and paraffin-embedded porcine tissues. CD172a (clone BL1H7) has proved a reliable tool for immunohistochemical analysis of routinely processed, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded porcine tissues, and CD3ε (clone PPT3) has been reported for use in both frozen and paraffin section immunohistochemistry as well as Western blotting and immunoprecipitation. Alexa Fluor-labeled anti-pig reagents are also employed in immunofluorescence microscopy and ELISA-based assays.
