Polyclonal antibodies

If an antigen is injected into an animal a number of antibody-producing cells will bind that antigen and albeit with varying degrees of affinity and so the antibody that appears in the bloodstream will have arisen from various clones of cells, which is it will be a polyclonal antibody. Various antibody molecules in a preparation  of polyclonal  antibody  will bind to several  components of the macromolecular   antigen  and  will  do  so  with  various  binding  affinities.  The binding region recognized through any one antibody molecule is known as an epitope. Many antibodies identify particular surface structures in a protein rather than specific amino acid sequences for instance the epitopes are defined through the conformation of the protein antigen. The preparation of polyclonal antibodies will bind to several epitopes on the protein antigen.