Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2011 Jan;59(1):13-32.
doi: 10.1369/jhc.2010.957191.

Antigen retrieval immunohistochemistry: review and future prospects in research and diagnosis over two decades

Shan-Rong Shi  1 , Yan Shi, Clive R Taylor
Affiliations
Review

Antigen retrieval immunohistochemistry: review and future prospects in research and diagnosis over two decades

Shan-Rong Shi et al. J Histochem Cytochem. 2011 Jan.

Abstract

As a review for the 20th anniversary of publishing the antigen retrieval (AR) technique in this journal, the authors intend briefly to summarize developments in AR-immunohistochemistry (IHC)-based research and diagnostics, with particular emphasis on current challenges and future research directions. Over the past 20 years, the efforts of many different investigators have coalesced in extending the AR approach to all areas of anatomic pathology diagnosis and research and further have led to AR-based protein extraction techniques and tissue-based proteomics. As a result, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) archival tissue collections are now seen as a literal treasure of materials for clinical and translational research to an extent unimaginable just two decades ago. Further research in AR-IHC is likely to focus on tissue proteomics, developing a more efficient protocol for protein extraction from FFPE tissue based on the AR principle, and combining the proteomics approach with AR-IHC to establish a practical, sophisticated platform for identifying and using biomarkers in personalized medicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Comparison of immunohistochemistry staining intensity of (A, B) p53 and (C, D) HER2 between (A, C) frozen and (B, D) formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections showing comparable intensity. (A, B) Colon cancer tissue. (C, D) Breast cancer tissue. Bars: A, B = 50 µm; C, D = 25 µm.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abbondanzo SL, Allred DC, Lampkin S, Banks PM. 1990. Enhancement of immunoreactivity among lymphoid malignant neoplasms in paraffin embedded tissues by refixation in zinc sulfate-formalin. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 115:31-33 - PubMed
    1. Abendroth CS, Dabbs DJ. 1995. Immunocytochemical staining of unstained versus previously stained cytologic preparations. Acta Cytol. 39:379-386 - PubMed
    1. Adams JC. 1992. Biotin amplification of biotine and horseradish peroxidase signals in histochemical stains. J Histochem Cytochem. 40:1457-1463 - PubMed
    1. Addis MF, Tanca A, Pagnozzi D, Crobu S, Fanciulli G, Cossu-Rocca P, Uzzau S. 2009. Generation of high-quality protein extracts from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues. Proteomics. 9:3815-3823 - PubMed
    1. Allred DC, Mohsin SK, Genty C, Mao S. 2006. Method of quantitative immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. United States patent US 2006/0160151 July 20, 2006

Publication types