Maintain experimental uniformity with Tissue Microarray Validated Recombinant Antibodies
– Jan Voskuil
What are Tissue Microarrays?
A Tissue MicroArray (TMA) of Formaldehyde-Fixed and Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) tissue sections allows for rapid immunohistochemistry (IHC) evaluation of many different samples on one slide. TMAs are produced by relocating a large number of representative tissue cores from multiple conventional histologic paraffin blocks. These tissue cores can be arranged on a single slide or block. TMA is a powerful technology for high-throughput analysis of protein or mRNA expression in a large number of tissue samples under similar experimental conditions with a single immunostaining or in situ hybridization procedure.
The primary use of TMAs in nonclinical development is to assess target distribution in a wide variety of tissues across species. The literature contains a multitude of validation studies confirming the utility and effectiveness of IHC on TMA sections. Various studies within the literature have examined breast carcinoma and their IHC staining patterns by TMA. Tissue microarrays have proven robust to support established associations between the expression of specific tumor receptors and their known tissue alterations. For example, TMAs were used to verify the association of the estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor, and separately ERBB2 (also known as HER2/neu) alterations, with the survival in breast cancer; the association of Ki67 labelling index with the prognosis in urinary bladder cancer and soft-tissue sarcoma. Also, an association was made between IGFBP2 protein expression and the local recurrence of prostatic tumors (L. Oyejide, O.R. Mendes, I. Mikaelian, Chapter 16 – Molecular Pathology: Applications in Nonclinical Drug Development, in: A Comprehensive Guide to Toxicology in Nonclinical Drug Development (Second Edition), 2017 Academic Press).
Antibodies in TMA
Most commonly applied to the field of oncology, the TMA has accelerated the development of new biomarkers, and is emerging as an essential tool in the discovery and validation of tissue biomarkers for use in personalized medicine. The staining produced by the applied antibodies need to be pathologically consistent across all the tissues, showing the correct cellular localization of the biomarker. This means that the antibody must detect the correct target (specific), and it should not cross-react to other proteins (selective) that have similar or identical binding sites/epitopes. Such a TMA-validated antibody becomes a reliable tool for biomarker detection in pre-clinical and clinical research.
Our TMA-Validated Recombinant Antibodies
We are introducing a unique global quality standard for the research antibody market, which is known as the Aeonian Rating®. The quality criteria for our rating are very stringent. Any rating under 70 will not make it to our catalogue. We pay special attention to the matter of antibody selectivity, consequently the antibodies we rate should not cross-react to non-targets. Our TMA-validated recombinant antibodies are supported by array data from normal and cancer tissues to demonstrate selectivity. Therefore, they get the highest Aeonian Ratings: 90-100.
Reviewed and tested.
