Epitopetagsareshortpeptidesequencesthatareeasilyrecognizedbytag-specificantibodies.Duetotheirsmallsize,epitopetagsdonotaffectthetaggedprotein’sbiochemicalproperties.MostoftensequencesencodingtheepitopetagareincludedwithtargetDNAatthetimeofcloningtoproducefusionproteinscontainingtheepitopetagsequence.Thisallowsanti-epitopetagantibodiestoserveasuniversaldetectionreagentsforanytagcontainingproteinproducedbyrecombinantmeans.Thismeansthatanti-epitopetagantibodiesareausefulalternativetogeneratingspecificantibodiestoidentify,immunoprecipitateorimmunoaffinitypurifyarecombinantprotein.TheH-H-H-H-H-Hmotifisusedasatagonmanyrecombinantproteinstofacilitatepurification.TheantibodyrecognizestheHis-tagfusedtotheamino-orcarboxy-terminioftargetedproteinsintransfectedortransformedcells.
