TITLE: Cell Line Microarray of Commonly used Cancer Cell Lines
CASE NUMBER: C14193
UNMET NEED
An emerging concern in the field of cancer pathology is the reliability and reproducibility of immunohistochemical (IHC), in situ hybridization (ISH), and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) methods to evaluate gene expression and genome alterations in tissues specimens. A tool that could be used to standardize the parameters of IHC or ISH for specific molecular targets would thus be very valuable for biomarker discovery and validation.
PROBLEM SOLVED
To address this problem, Researchers at Johns Hopkins have used a modified formalin fixation technique to construct a cell line tissue microarray (TMA) that comprises the NCI-60 panel of cancer lines. This TMA is composed of well-characterized, readily available cell lines that can be grown, fixed, and processed under defined conditions. They use a fixation method that avoids thermal damage to the fixed cells and allows a very high density of cells per spot. They demonstrate that this approach can be utilized to optimize and compare reagents for key cancer IHC, ISH, and FISH based biomarkers, and can also aid in the identification of new molecular targets in different cancer types.
MAJOR RESULTS
Cultured cell lines can be used by researchers as standardized, readily available fixed specimens for optimization and validation of molecular probes for DNA, RNA, and protein biomarkers.
High-density cell packing fixation offers an alternative to traditional agarose-based fixation methods and is especially useful for the development of cell line TMAs.
The generation of cell line TMAs may be used to standardize methods of fixation and processing and improve researchers’ ability to analytically validate numerous biomarkers.
These slides allow optimization of IHC/ISH protocols on cancer cell lines, which are readily available, highly studied biological specimens. This allows standardization in a way that clinical biopsies, which are finite and variable in quality, cannot.
DISEASE INDICATION
Cancer
ASSOCIATED PUBLICATIONS
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