High Quality Tissue Miniarray Technique Using a Conventional TV/Radio Telescopic Antenna

Background: The tissue microarray (TMA) is widely accepted as a fast and cost-effective research tool forin situ tissue analysis in modern pathology. However, the current automated and manual TMA techniqueshave some drawbacks restricting their productivity. Our study aimed to introduce an improved manual tissueminiarray (TmA) technique that is simple and readily applicable to a broad range of tissue samples. Materialsand
Methods: In this study, a conventional TV/radio telescopic antenna was used to punch tissue cores manuallyfrom donor paraffin embedded tissue blocks which were pre-incubated at 40oC. The cores were manuallytransferred, organized and attached to a standard block mould, and filled with liquid paraffin to construct TmAblocks without any use of recipient paraffin blocks.
Results: By using a conventional TV/radio antenna, it waspossible to construct TmA paraffin blocks with variable formats of array size and number (2-mm x 42, 2.5-mmx 30, 3-mm x 24, 4-mm x 20 and 5-mm x 12 cores). Up to 2-mm x 84 cores could be mounted and stained on astandard microscopic slide by cutting two sections from two different blocks and mounting them beside eachother. The technique was simple and caused minimal damage to the donor blocks. H&E and immunostainedslides showed well-defined tissue morphology and array configuration.
Conclusions: This technique is easy toreproduce, quick, inexpensive and creates uniform blocks with abundant tissues without specialized equipment.It was found to improve the stability of the cores within the paraffin block and facilitated no losses during cuttingand immunostaining.