A new investigative technique for tumor spheres: egg-white-paraffin embedding technique / 中华神经医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore a new long-term efficient embedding technique of tumor spheres.Methods Tumor spheres,mainly composed of cancer stem cells,were cultured from glioblastoma tissues.The fifth generation of tumor spheres was chosen for egg-white-paraffin embedding and section.Then,those tumor sphere slices were observed by HE staining,immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining.And the immunofluorescence results of these tumor sphere slices were compared with those tumor spheres kept with traditional methods.Results Immunofluorescence results showed that tumor spheres kept with traditional methods looked blurry,and the positive cells and the positive protein expression sites in the cells could not be displayed.HE staining demonstrated that the tumor sphere slices had well-distributed intact spheres and coloring cells with high karyoplasm contrast.Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining of tumor sphere slices showed clear background,from which positive cells and positive locus could be easily displayed; therefore,semi-quantitative analysis of the positive cells could be performed.Conclusion Egg-white-paraffin embedding technique of the tumor sphere slices can reduce experimental errors and cut down the costs,which enjoys its advantage as compared with traditional embedding technique of the tumor sphere slices.