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Advantages of Monoclonal Antibodies

1. Homogeneity: Monoclonal antibody represents a single antibody molecule that binds to antigens with the same affinity and promote the same effector functions.
   
   
2. Specificity: The product of a single hybridoma reacts with the same epitope on antigens.
   
   
3. Immunizing Antigen: Need not be pure or characterized and is ultimately not needed to produce large quantities of antibody.
   
   
4. Selection: It is possible to select for specific epitope specificities and generate antibodies against a wider range of antigenic determinants.
   
   
5. Antibody Production: Unlimited quantities of a single well-defined monospecific reagent.

Disadvantages of Monoclonal Antibodies

1. Affinity: Average affinity of monoclonal antibodies are generally lower than polyclonal antibodies.
   
   
2. Effector Functions: Because antibody is monoclonal, it may not produce the desired biologic response.
   
   
3. Specificity: Monoclonals against conformational epitopes on native proteins may lose reactivity with antigens that have been minimally perturbed.
   
   
4. Crossreactions: Antibodies sometimes display unexpected crossreactions with unrelated antigens.
   
   
5. Time and effort commitment: VERY LARGE