Every year, CiteAb publishes a list of the most cited and purchased antibodies in life science research and every year the list looks surprisingly familiar. Anti-GFP. Anti-Tags. Control antibodies (actin, tubulin, GAPDH, Histone). Some of these references appear year after year — and, in many cases, they’re still polyclonal antibodies (19 out of 60 primary antibodies in the latest list!).
It’s remarkable. In 2026, when reproducibility and rigor are front-page issues in scientific publishing, many of the most widely used antibodies are still polyclonal antibodies — produced in animals, batch-to-batch variable, and, in principle, impossible to reproduce precisely.
Why does this persist?
Part of the answer is historical inertia. These antibodies have been cited thousands of times. They’ve “worked before”, so they get written into protocols, and methods sections. Changing them feels risky. They are legacy antibodies” if you will.
But the cost of convenience is reproducibility. Although the reference is the same, each lot of a polyclonal antibody is a new mixture of immune responses — subtly (or not so subtly) different from the last. The result? Data drift, irreproducible findings, and an invisible source of variability that ripples across the literature.
The good news
Modern monoclonal and especially recombinant antibodies eliminate this uncertainty. They’re defined by sequence, consistent across production runs, and renewable without relying on immunizing animals repeatedly. They deliver the same binding properties today, next year, and ten years from now. And in the case of these top-cited polyclonals, validated monoclonal or recombinant alternatives exist. Sometimes they are sold by the very same suppliers offering the polyclonal reference.
At ABCD Antibodies, we believe it’s time for the research community to retire these legacy antibodies and move toward sequence-defined, reproducible reagents whenever there is a good alternative. The tools exist — and they’re better in every way that matters: reproducibility, sustainability, and scientific integrity.
It’s not just an upgrade in technology. It’s an upgrade in trust.
BLOG POST: “Legacy Antibodies”: Why Polyclonals Still Dominate Science ?
