Immunohistochemistry as an Important Tool in Biomarkers Detection and Clinical Practice

Abstract

The immunohistochemistry technique is used in the search for cell or tissue antigens that range from amino acids and proteins to infectious agents and specific cellular populations. The technique comprises two phases: (1) slides preparation and stages involved for the reaction; (2) interpretation and quantification of the obtained expression. Immunohistochemistry is an important tool for scientific research and also a complementary technique for the elucidation of differential diagnoses which are not determinable by conventional analysis with hematoxylin and eosin. In the last couple of decades there has been an exponential increase in publications on immunohistochemistry and immunocytochemistry techniques. This review covers the immunohistochemistry technique; its history, applications, importance, limitations, difficulties, problems and some aspects related to results interpretation and quantification. Future developments on the immunohistochemistry technique and its expression quantification should not be disseminated in two languages—that of the pathologist and another of clinician or surgeon. The scientific, diagnostic and prognostic applications of this methodology must be explored in a bid to benefit of patient. In order to achieve this goal a collaboration and pooling of knowledge from both of these valuable medical areas is vital

Seasonal variation in corticosterone receptor binding in brain, hippocampus, and gonads in House Sparrows (Passer domesticus)

“…The receptor binding technique we used provides a robust quantification of changes in receptor numbers, but at the cost of anatomical specificity. This is a tradeoff, because more anatomically specific techniques, such as immunohistochemistry, typically provide only semiquantitative measures of changes in receptor density (de Matos et al 2010). Consequently, even though we could not identify specific brain areas where GR binding decreased, we are confident that the seasonal changes in binding represent physiologically relevant differences in the number of receptors.…”

Automated analysis of immunohistochemistry images identifies candidate location biomarkers for cancers

“…Methods for analyzing changes in expression and pattern are well established in cultured cells (8), but histological images are typically more difficult to analyze because cellular heterogeneity and the closely packed organization of cells lead to significant cell segmentation challenges. Several projects have been initiated to build workflows that process IHC images (9,10). Most of this work has been focused on quantifying differences in protein abundance between normal and cancer tissue.…”

Accumulating advantages, reducing limitations: Multimodal nonlinear imaging in biomedical sciences – The synergy of multiple contrast mechanisms

“…(C) OCT is combined with multimodal nonlinear microscopy to study the structure and composition of a quail trachea. OCT provides large xz-crosssections 2 mm  0.5 mm in less than a second (1), which is combined with high resolution nonlinear microscopy to image the tissue in various depths (2)(3)(4). By nonlinear microscopy three layers are detected: adventitia 2, cartilage 3 and mucosa 4 [18].…”

“…The OCT xz-cross section of 2 mm by 0.5 mm is acquired in less than a second and provides an overview. SHG and 2PF imaging are used to investigate a smaller area in detail revealing the layered structure of adventitia (2), cartilage (3) and mucosa (4).…”

“…This research was accompanied by the development of sophisticated and increasingly specific and selective staining microscopic techniques primarily employed to investigate thin sections of formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue [1][2][3]. Later the development of molecule specific probes in immunohistochemistry allowed single molecule detection, e.g., of disease specific marker molecules, which is the current golden standard in routine histopathology of diseases [4][5][6]. Today, however, research interests have shifted: Instead of static investigations on tissue morphology and composition using established imaging methods, e.g., brightfield, darkfield and phase contrast whitelight microscopy, nowadays fundamental research in the life sciences focuses on the holistic investigation of the great diversity of interactions of cell assemblies, living tissues and whole organisms.…”