Monoclonal antibodies, molecular structure

R. L. Stanfield and I. A. Wilson, Antibody Molecular Structure , in Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibodies From Bench to Clinic, ed. Z. An, John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, N. J., 2009, p. 51. 

Although both polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies have been effectively used in immunochemical assays, only the latter can provide the high specificity required in some applications. Antibody specificity, on the other hand, is both a major advantage and disadvantage for immunochemical methods. It allows for highly selective detection of analytes but at the same time may complicate the development of multiresidue methods. Moreover, production of monoclonal antibodies requires special expertise and it is much more expensive than polyclonal antibodies. Thus, in cases where a range of analytes similar in molecular structure are required to be determined, a polyclonal may be more suitable than a monoclonal antibody. 

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) these comprise a general class of compounds with defined structure and typically with molecular weight around ISOkDa. 

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