Prothymosin alpha (ProTα) is a highly acidic polypeptide, ubiquitously expressed in almost all mammalian cells and tissues and consisting of 109 amino acids in humans. ProTα is known to act both, intracellularly, as an anti-apoptotic and proliferation mediator, and extracellularly, as a biologic response modifier mediating immune responses similar to molecules termed as “alarmins”. Antibodies and immunochemical techniques for ProTα have played a leading role in the investigation of the biological role of ProTα, several aspects of which still remain unknown and contributed to unraveling the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of the polypeptide. This review deals with the so far reported antibodies along with the related immunodetection methodology for ProTα (immunoassays as well as immunohistochemical, immunocytological, immunoblotting, and immunoprecipitation techniques) and its application to biological samples of interest (tissue extracts and sections, cells, cell lysates and cell culture supernatants, body fluids), in health and disease states. In this context, literature information is critically discussed, and some concluding remarks are presented.

胸腺素α（ProTα）是一种高酸性多肽，几乎在所有哺乳动物细胞和组织中普遍表达，由人类的109个氨基酸组成。已知ProTα在细胞内既起抗凋亡和增殖介质的作用，又在细胞外起生物学反应的调节剂的作用，该调节剂介导类似于被称为“ alarmins”的分子的免疫应答。ProTα的抗体和免疫化学技术在ProTα生物学作用的研究中发挥了主导作用，其几个方面仍然未知，并有助于弄清该多肽的诊断和治疗潜力。这篇评论涉及迄今为止报道的抗体以及ProTα的相关免疫检测方法（免疫测定以及免疫组化，免疫细胞学，免疫印迹，和免疫沉淀技术）及其在健康和疾病状态下的目标生物学样品（组织提取物和切片，细胞，细胞裂解液和细胞培养上清液，体液）中的应用。在这种情况下，对文献信息进行了严格的讨论，并提出了一些结论性意见。