Epitopetagsareshortpeptidesequencesthatareeasilyrecognizedbytag-specificantibodies.Duetotheirsmallsize,epitopetagsdonotaffectthetaggedprotein’sbiochemicalproperties.MostoftensequencesencodingtheepitopetagareincludedwithtargetDNAatthetimeofcloningtoproducefusionproteinscontainingtheepitopetagsequence.Thisallowsanti-epitopetagantibodiestoserveasuniversaldetectionreagentsforanytagcontainingproteinproducedbyrecombinantmeans.Thismeansthatanti-epitopetagantibodiesareausefulalternativetogeneratingspecificantibodiestoidentify,immunoprecipitateorimmunoaffinitypurifyarecombinantprotein.Theanti-epitopetagantibodyisusuallyfunctionalinavarietyofantibody-dependentexperimentalprocedures.Expressionvectorsproducingepitopetagfusionproteinsareavailableforavarietyofhostexpressionsystemsincludingbacteria,yeast,insectandmammaliancells.