It's acknowledged that researchers rarely can perform direct experiments on human subjects. Therefore, model organisms become attractive examples to be studied when other species, especially humans, are not practical. Furthermore, a wealth of favorable characteristics also make model organism antibodies become a hot spot.
Features of a Good Model Organism
Since model organisms are vital tools for global scientists to study and reveal universal biological phenomena and laws, a preferred model organism should universally be:
l Conducive to answering concerned research questions, and with physiological characteristics representing a large biological group.
l Characterized with short generations, many offspring, easy to breed in the laboratory, and clear genetic background.
l Easy to perform experimental operations, especially genetic manipulations and phenotypic analysis.
To sum up, model organisms are typically chosen in terms of organism size, generational cycle, fecundity rate, genome size, cost of maintenance, homology to humans, the capacity to generate mutants to study certain traits or diseases, etc.
5 Common Model Organisms in Research
Model organisms have shown valuable biological insights at the cell, tissue, organ, and system level. There are several types of model organisms varying in complexity and use, and the following are 5 common ones.
Yeast is one of the simplest and smallest eukaryotic organisms. Apart from the ability to survive in a variety of environments and double every 2 hours, yeast is the first eukaryotic organism whose genome is entirely-sequenced, making it friendly to genetic manipulation. Based on its simplicity and the high similarity to human biological properties, yeast cells have been widely applied in the study of gene mutations in human cancers and neurological diseases, such as Parkinson's disease (PD).
The mouse (Mus musculus) is the most preferred mammalian model organism for many researchers, as they share more genetically and physiologically similarities to humans than others. Mouse models are extensively used to study the progress of disease and the development of new drugs.
Drosophila melanogaster, known as the fruit fly, is another ideal model organism that has been used in research for over a century. Fruit flies are easy and cheap to grow, with a short life span and a large number of offspring. It is estimated that 75% of disease-causing genes in humans have a functional homolog in the fruit flies, rendering them an ideal model organism to study genetics, nervous system, and the development of disease.
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) also gradually becomes one of the most important model organisms, because they have 70% homologous genes with humans and 85% of human genes causing diseases can find a homolog in zebrafish. Moreover, their transparent embryos make zebrafish an ideal model organism for embryonic development studies.
The last one is the roundworm (Caenorhabditis elegans). Most worms are self-fertile hermaphrodites, which makes it effortless to conduct large experiments even over multiple generations. What's more, the Caenorhabditis elegans genome is also completely sequenced and over 60% of human genes have an ortholog in the roundworms.
The Development of Model-org Antibodies
However, most model organisms such as rice, Arabidopsis, corn, yeast, fruit flies, and nematodes lack mature commercial antibodies, which greatly limits current scientific research. So, it is necessary to develop specific antibodies for model organisms to better study human diseases.
Creative Biolabs has been dedicated to generating model organism antibodies for years and has a wide range of modelorg antibody products, including zebrafish antibodies, nematode antibodies, and monkey antibodies. Meanwhile, it also provides diversified species genetic information and one-stop customized services involving Avi-tag biotinylated antibody service, antibody fluorescent labeling service, and fab abzyme cutting service.
Model organisms as non-human species have been extensively studied, and researchers have had a deep understanding of their biological phenomena. Nevertheless, it is well known that different model organisms used in experiments bring different results. Therefore, choosing an appropriate model organism for in vivo research and developing specific modelorg antibody products are also an important direction for biology and biomedicine research.
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