{"id":3008,"date":"2026-08-22T21:08:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamlessbio.de\/?page_id=3008"},"modified":"2026-08-23T00:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:25:13","slug":"what-is-goat-serum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/seamlessbio.de\/de\/what-is-goat-serum\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Normal Goat Serum (NGS)?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Quick Definition<\/p>\n

What is Normal Goat Serum (NGS)?:<\/strong> Normal Goat Serum (NGS) is serum from healthy goats used as a blocking reagent in IHC and IF when secondary antibodies are raised in goat. It saturates non-specific Fc receptor binding sites in tissue sections before the secondary antibody is applied, reducing background signal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When NOT to use goat serum for blocking<\/h2>\n

Never use Normal Goat Serum when your primary antibody is raised in goat. Goat serum IgG will occupy the same epitope binding sites that your goat primary antibody targets \u2014 blocking binding and resulting in no signal. In this case use blocking serum from a different species (horse serum is a common alternative).<\/p>\n

NGS vs NDS for multi-label experiments<\/h2>\n

For single-label IHC with a goat secondary, NGS is correct. For multi-label IF with primaries from rabbit, mouse, and goat hosts, switching all secondaries to donkey-raised allows a single Normal Donkey Serum (NDS) blocking step \u2014 simplifying the protocol significantly.<\/p>\n

Key Facts<\/h2>\n