Validated Antibody Database (VAD): a database of antibodies curated from publications

While antibodies used for therapeutics and clinical diagnosis are subject to stringent regulations by health authorities throughout the world, there are no standards or third‐party quality controls for research antibodies. Hundreds of biotech companies offer research antibodies, which are either polyclonal, monoclonal, or more recently, recombinant. However, the specificities of these antibody reagents do not always match scientists' expectations. An antibody might bind non‐specific targets and might not be suitable for a specific application. Utilization of such an antibody often leads to false positive results. These misleading results nullify important discoveries, discredit a research team and impede scientific progress. Academic journals have withdrawn articles presenting data based on non‐specific antibodies, and poor antibody quality has been attributed as one of the causes for the irreproducibility of published discoveries. In order to help alleviate this antibody quality and specificity problem, Labome organizes antibody applications cited in formal publications and has developed Validated Antibody Database (VAD). VAD, a manually curated database, compiles commercial and non‐commercial antibodies whose specificities and applications have been independently reported in published results from formal articles. Our curation priorities are articles with monoclonal antibodies and those discussing knockout studies. One of the benefits of our curation effort is the identification of cross‐reactive species and novel applications for antibodies, which are often developed for human/mouse proteins and tested by suppliers for a limited number of applications. Labome registers many antibodies having cross‐reactivities with model organisms such as flies, worms, zebrafish, and frogs and with novel applications from the literature. The current version was released in September 2016 and is freely accessible for online browsing.