A couple of basic immunology questions

[mountainhare]

I've looked everywhere to find info on the following two questions, but there is nothing on PubMed/Google/Wikipedia

Q1. What is the difference between a blood clot, and a plasma clot?

Q2. Why is serum, rather than blood or plasma, most commonly used as a source of antibodies?

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

I’m no immunologist, so these are merely speculations: :shrug:

1) Are you sure there is a difference? Are they simply alternative terms for the same thing?

2) Serum is plasma with the clotting/coagulation factors removed, is that correct? I presume that there are fewer downstream problems when serum is used as an antibody source compared to plasma due to the absence of the coagulation factors. Most coagulation factors are serine proteases which might cause problems in subsequent experiments like western blots and ELISA.