Caprylic acid has been used to enrich IgG from serum, ascites, and cell culture supernatants by precipitating the non-IgG serum proteins. By precipitating all of the unwanted serum proteins rather than the antibodies, the tendency of antibodies to aggregate when precipitated is avoided. This method should not be used with antibody sources that contain low concentrations of antibody, such as many cell culture supernatants, owing to the potential loss of high-affinity antibodies, which may be bound by the caprylic acid. After centrifugation, IgG remains in the supernatant, which can be used as the starting material for the next step in a multistep antibody purification protocol.