Multiplex quantitative measurement of mRNAs from fixed tissue microarray sections

Appl Immunohistochem Mol Morphol. 2014 May-Jun;22(5):323-30. doi: 10.1097/PDM.0000000000000039.

Abstract

The development of prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers, such as those from gene expression studies, requires independent validation in clinical specimens. Immunohistochemical analysis on tissue microarrays (TMAs) of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue is often used to increase the statistical power, and it is used more often than in situ hybridization, which can be technically limiting. Herein, we introduce a method for performing quantitative gene expression analysis across a TMA using an adaptation of 2D-RT-qPCR, a recently developed technology for measuring transcript levels in a histologic section while maintaining 2-dimensional positional information of the tissue sample. As a demonstration of utility, a TMA with tumor and normal human prostate samples was used to validate expression profiles from previous array-based gene discovery studies of prostate cancer. The results show that 2D-RT-qPCR expands the utility of TMAs to include sensitive and accurate gene expression measurements.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Feasibility Studies
  • Gene Expression Profiling / methods*
  • High-Throughput Screening Assays
  • Humans
  • Immunohistochemistry
  • Male
  • Paraffin Embedding
  • Prostate / pathology*
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / diagnosis*
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / pathology
  • RNA, Messenger / analysis*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Tissue Array Analysis

Substances

  • RNA, Messenger