Crustacean Hemocyanin

Beacon Crustacean Hemocyanin (BCH) is a purified preparation of Crustacean hemocyanin which provides high immunogenicity to conjugated haptens (e.g., small molecular compounds, peptides, and proteins). Immunization with these hapten-BCH conjugates can then elicit specific antibodies against the analytical compound. This Crustacean Hemocyanin subunit (75 kDa) is approximately 1/5 the size of the keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) subunit; hence, it has a significant advantage over KLH in solubility. The Crustacean Hemocyanin subunit can assemble into two hexamers (12 subunits), with an approximate MW of 900 kDa. Since the protein is derived from crustaceans, it is phylogenetically distant from mammalian species and less likely to produce antibodies that will cross-react with other compounds in immunoassays. Antibodies against this carrier showed less than 1% cross reactivity with KLH.