Abstract
BackgroundTissue microarray technology has provided a high throughput means of evaluating potential biomarkers in archival pathological specimens. This study was carried out in order to produce tissue microarray blocks using mechanical pencil tips without high cost.MethodConventional mechanical pencil tips (Rotring Tikky II Mechanical Pencil 1.0 mm) were used to cut out 1 mm wax cylinders from the recipient block, creating from 36 to 72 holes. Three cores of tumor areas were punched out manually by using the mechanical pencil tips from donor paraffin embedded tissue blocks and transferred to the holes of the paraffin tissue microarrays.ResultsThis technique was easy and caused little damage to the donor blocks. We successfully performed H&E slides and immunodetection without substantial tissue cylinder loss.ConclusionOur mechanical pencil tip technique is the most inexpensive easy technique among the literature. It also takes a reasonable amount of time and reduces antibody consumption during immunohistochemistry
Highlights
Tissue microarray (TMA) technology has provided a high throughput means of evaluating potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets in archival pathological specimens
The conventional construction of a TMA block involves the use of a commercial TMA builder instrument to punch the cores from donor blocks, and the transference of these tissue cores to a recipient block, producing blocks with even 1000 tissue cores [2]
Mechanical pencil tip 1 mm thick was used to punch out 1 mm wax cylinders from the recipient block, creating from 36 to 72 holes (Figure 2)
Summary
Tissue microarray (TMA) technology has provided a high throughput means of evaluating potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets in archival pathological specimens. In automated method one can mark, edit and save punch coordinates using an on-screen display and software tools, while performing visual selection during punching, using magnifying glass or a stereomicroscope as a guide [3] This technique has been restricted to institutions with the funds to buy a tissue puncher/arrayer (from Beecher Instruments, Sun Prairie, WI; cost, at least $7,000) or to let commercial companies do the expensive array construction Pires et al [2] described a new technique which is based on the construction of TMA needles modifying conventional hypodermic needles to punch tissue cores from donor blocks. They built TMA blocks with more than 300 tissue cores with initial cost of near $ 100.00. This study was carried out in order to produce TMA blocks using mechanical pencil tips without the high cost mentioned above
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