Anti-pan-Cytokeratin Antibody

Raised in rabbit hosts, this polyclonal antibody from Antibodies.com is supplied as 100 µl of unconjugated reagent that recognizes a broad spectrum of cytokeratin isoforms, including CK1, CK4, CK5, CK6, CK8, CK10, CK13, CK18, and CK19. Cytokeratins are intermediate filament proteins characteristic of epithelial cells, so this reagent serves as a general epithelial marker in both tissue sections and cell-based assays. Researchers commonly apply it in immunohistochemistry (IHC) of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsies to confirm epithelial origin in tumor samples and to distinguish carcinomas from non-epithelial malignancies such as sarcomas, lymphomas, and melanomas.

Validated for WB and IHC workflows, the antibody reacts with human cytokeratins and produces characteristic multi-band western blot patterns corresponding to the several keratin isoforms it detects. This makes it useful for screening epithelial cell lines, characterizing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) models, and verifying epithelial content in organoid or engineered tissue cultures. Studies of circulating tumor cells and micrometastases in sentinel lymph nodes also rely on pan-cytokeratin staining to highlight epithelial components within heterogeneous samples.

Because the reagent is unconjugated, laboratories can pair it with user-selected detection chemistries for chromogenic or fluorescence imaging. It is intended for research use only and fits cancer pathology research, epithelial cell biology studies, and validation of epithelial differentiation in stem cell or regenerative medicine workflows.