Primary antibody storage - (Aug/19/2013 )

Hi, 

We are planning to perform immunofleiroescence in our lab so we ordered the primary antibody however I have no idea on how to store the Ab. On the storage data sheet it states that if I'm not planning to use the antibody within a two week period I should aliqout the antibody and store it at -20. Now the amount of the Ab is 100 micro-gram (1mg/ml) and I'm planning to use the Ab at 1:100 dilution. In the data sheet I cant find the volume of the Ab but I'm guessing it's about 200 microliters , What is the optimal volume for aliqouting the Ab and how many assays this amount of the Ab is sufficient to perform?

The volume will be v=n/c =100 ug/1000 ug/ml = 0.1 ml.

The optimal aliquot volume will be determined by how often you use this antibody (i.e. are you likely to use up the aliquot in the 2 week time period?), and the volume you will be diluting the antibody in (i.e. how many samples will you be doing over the 2 week time period? How much will you use per sample?).