Immunoprecipitation Protocol

Immunoprecipitation is a method that enables the purification of a protein. An antibody for the protein of interest is incubated with a cell extract so that the antibody will bind the protein in solution. The antibody/antigen complex will then be pulled out of the sample using protein A/G-coupled agarose beads. This physically isolates the protein of interest from the rest of the sample. The sample can then be separated by SDS-PAGE for Western blot analysis.