Although FITC is still the most popular fluorescent labeling dye for preparing green fluorescent bioconjugates, there are certain limitations with FITC, such as severe photobleaching for microscope imaging and pH-sensitive fluorescence. Protein conjugates prepared with iFluor® 488 dyes are far superior compared to conjugates of fluorescein derivatives such as FITC. iFluor® 488 conjugates are significantly brighter than fluorescein conjugates and are much more photostable. Additionally, the fluorescence of iFluor® 488 is not affected by pH (4-10). This pH insensitivity is a major improvement over fluorescein, which emits its maximum fluorescence only at pH above 9. ReadiLink™ labeling kits essentially only require 2 simple mixing steps without a column purification needed. iFluor® 488 SE used in this ReadiLink™ kit is reasonably stable and shows good reactivity and selectivity with protein amino groups. The kit has all the essential components for labeling ~2x50 ug antibody. Each of the two vials of iFluor® 488 dye provided in the kit is optimized for labeling ~50 µg antibody. iFluor® 488 SE protein labeling kit provides a convenient method to label monoclonal, polyclonal antibodies or other proteins (>10 kDa) with the iFluor® 488 SE.

Figure 1. Overview of the ReadiLink™ Rapid Antibody Labeling protocol. In just two simple steps, and with no purification necessary, covalently label microgram amounts of antibodies in under an hour.