Intramural Research
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Tissue Microarray Project
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Tissue Microarray Construction
The sampling of the original tissues for arraying is performed from morphologically representative regions of regular formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor blocks. Core tissue biopsies (diameter 0.6 mm, height 3-4 mm) are taken from individual ”donor” blocks and arrayed into a new ”recipient” paraffin block (45 x 20 mm) using a tissue microarraying instrument (Beecher Instruments). We prefer 0.6 mm cylinders, which convey some histological information, yet allow up to 1000 specimens to be arrayed in each block with little damage to the original blocks. The donor block is manually positioned for sampling based on a visual alignment with the corresponding HE-stained section on a slide. The region of interest for punching in each tumor is carefully selected from the H&E stained slide.
After the block construction is completed, 5-8 µm sections of the resulting tumor tissue microarray block are cut with a microtome. An adhesive-coated tape sectioning system (Instrumedics) is useful for assisting sectioning of the tumor array blocks. On average, 200 sections can be cut from one tumor tissue microarray block. HE-staining for histology verification is performed every 50th section cut from the block.
Tissue microarray slide can be evaluated either manually or utilizing a high-throughput digital imaging system. For brightfield image acquisition we are currently utilizing a system produced by Carl Zeiss based on a high-resolution (4k X 3k pixels) digital camera.
- Tissue Microarray Project Home Page
- Tissue Microarray Construction and Analysis
- NIH Tissue Array Research Program (TARP)
- Selected References
Comments, suggestions and problems to bioinformatics@nhgri.nih.gov
