Science’s most wanted
If we consider the reproducibility crisis to be a crime against science, then antibodies are the most wanted culprit. In 2015, a survey by Nature estimated that only 50% of commercial antibodies used in biomedical research actually perform how they’re intended. Major hurdles include cross-reactivity, batch-to-batch variability, and improper application; further compounded by a lack of widely accepted standards for validating antibodies.
Why does antibody validation matter?
Given the widespread use of antibodies in health and biomedical research, antibody validation stands to enhance data quality by increasing reliability. By confirming the specificity and qualifying the applications, well-validated antibodies have the potential to save researchers from wasting both time and resources. The use of validated antibodies in research also increases confidence that the findings are indeed correct.
Who should lead this charge?
It goes without saying that publishers are uniquely positioned to encourage, and even require, detailed reporting of methods, resources, and reagents to enhance reproducibility. The same can be said for antibodies.
The Antibody Validation Channel at F1000Research, launched in 2013, was developed to support the scientific community in confronting the issues raised here, in response to a growing demand for properly designed, characterised, and validated antibodies. Our approach is predicated on the idea that by making the detailed methodologies and complete datasets supporting antibody validations openly accessible, we can increase the reliability of antibodies used in research. The impact of our approach is three-fold: scientists receive credit for sharing their validations, which are not traditionally published despite their value (and time consumption!); researchers can access and assess validations, and apply the findings in their own work; and manufacturers can gain the trust of their clients through transparent reporting of validation attempts.
Due to the increasing numbers of commercially available antibodies, we recognise that correct identification of an antibody is of equal importance to validation when it comes to reproducible science. F1000Research encourages authors to add Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) to their articles in order to uniquely identify antibodies. Inclusion of RRIDs ensures researchers have sufficiently cited the antibodies used, and promotes reuse. What’s more, RRIDs are machine readable, free to generate and access, and consistent across publishers.
Much like antibodies themselves, validation studies can take a variety of forms. In response, F1000Research has developed specific guidelines for these articles and accepts studies describing:
- New antibodies; either against a new target or a new antibody raised against an existing target.
- New applications for existing antibodies; either in a new biological system or a new application tested within an existing/previously tested biological system.
- Existing antibodies applied to a new biological system; new organism/tissue/cell type.
- Validations of previously tested antibodies that are carried out in more depth than before, in one or more applications.
- Validations of groups of antibodies raised against the same target.
- Antibodies that failed to meet the validation criteria.
- Replication studies that confirm or dispute previously published validations.
By providing a space where researchers and suppliers can publish antibody validations studies, and discover existing articles supported by openly available data, we hope that we can increase confidence in commercial antibodies and, in turn, improve reproducibility.
With thanks to:
Hollydawn Murray - Publishing Editor
Michael Markie - Publisher
