What is lysate immunoprecipitation?

Immunoprecipitation (IP) is often also referred to as lysate immunoprecipitation because preparing cell lysates is the first step in the process. Using the right lysis buffer is key to preparing high quality samples for immunoprecipitation, especially when studying protein-protein interactions by co-IP.

Immunoprecipitation is based on the specific affinity between an antibody and its target protein. During this process, the antibody is incubated with lysates that contain the target protein to create an antibody-protein complex. This makes it easier to extract the target protein for further analysis.