Immunohistochemistry
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is of crucial importance to the investigation and documentation of changes in expression of specific gene products and their localization in tissues.
IHC permits the visualization and morphometric analysis of cells in histological sections. Consolidated IHC findings support “Mode of Action analysis” and preclinical safety assessment of low molecular weight drugs and biopharmaceuticals.
The IHC services include immunostaining and microscopic analysis of human, non-human primate or any other mammalian tissue as well as staining of microtissue sections from 3D cell-culture systems, in synergy with our 3D cell-based assay service.
IBR Inc. performs custom immunostaining using commercially available antibodies or client's proprietary antibodies.
Our Immunohistochemistry Services
The IHC service starts with embedding and sectioning or makes use of tissue sections provided by customers. Sections of reproducible thickness and optimal quality are prerequisites of a successful IHC or immunofluorescence staining and depend on state-of-the-art equipment.
Starting materials for preparation of cryo-embedded or paraffin-embedded tissue sections are formalin fixed tissue, frozen tissue in OCT, paraffin blocks or paraffin sections.
Optimal IHC staining depends on critical selection of the primary antibody and optimization steps, which include adjustment of the experimental conditions and titration of the primary and secondary antibody concentrations to achieve appropriate sensitivity, specificity, antigen retrieval, counterstain and detection. To meet these requirements a fully automated IHC processing like the Leica Bond™ system is of great advantage. The Leica Bond system combined with the Covertile™ technology delivers brilliant IHC and provides total tissue care with no tissue lift or dry-out. Full automation ensures consistency, high-reproducibility and high-resolution. In addition, the Leica Bond™ system also ensures optimal In-Situ Hybridization (ISH) results.
Our Olympus IX71 microscope is equipped with a cooled 1.4 megapixel CCD camera with high resolution for weak fluorescence signals, extreme sensitivity, variable exposure times and external trigger function (frame rate of more than 15 images per second), enabling a high quality microscopic analysis and micro photographic documentation. For color imaging, we use an Olympus UC30 3.2MP color camera.
Olympus BX43 microscope is equipped with XC 50 color camera.
Olympus cellˆF software ensures high quality documentation.
Our expert scientists and/or board-certified pathologist perform a competent evaluation of IHC results and quantitative software image-analysis – read more
In addition, we have broad experience in the evaluation of ISH and IHC staining of tissue libraries and tissue microarrays as well as in the evaluation of FISH results.
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