Tissue and Cell Molecular Analysis (TACMA) Immunostaining

Immunostain

The TACMA Shared Resource provides manual and automatic immunostaining using a variety of antibody detection chemistries, including DAB and NovaRed for use with brightfield microscopy, and secondary antibodies conjugated to fluorophores for epifluorescence microscopy.

Custom Optimization and Titration of New Antibodies

Antigen retrieval is necessary for many antibodies to work on paraffin sections. When optimizing a new antibody for use on paraffin sections, a variety of retrieval strategies are tested. These strategies include heat treatment with citrate buffers at various pH, heat treatment with EDTA, or digestion with proteases. Antibody concentrations are titrated to achieve the best signal to noise ratio. Positive and negative control tissues and peptide competitions are included to validate the resulting staining. We frequently add new antibodies to our repertoire at the request of investigators and explore new antigen retrieval techniques.

The following is a list of developed antibodies available within TACMA: