National BioService is the only developer and manufacturer of tissue microarrays (TMAs) in Russia.
Advances in molecular biology enabled identification of key molecular targets that underlie the pathogenesis of many severe disorders. This resulted in the development of the concept of targeted therapy and the emergence of a new type of therapy—monoclonal antibodies.
Every year increasing numbers of these drugs are undergoing clinical trials for approval by the US and European regulators. Tissue microarrays (TMA) serve as a modern platform for the development of therapeutic and diagnostic monoclonal antibodies, since this is an innovative, reliable and cost-effective method to test their specificity and cross-reactivity.
What TMA is:
A tissue microarray is a paraffin block with embedded 0.6 to 3.0-mm tissue cylinders. The most convenient and common format is a block consisting of 60 2.0-mm cylinders. TMA paraffin sections are used for histological, immunohistochemical, or molecular genetic studies.
TMA advantages:
- fewer histological sections are required for a full analysis
- getting work done in less time
- reduced consumption of reagents and consumables
- reduced costs of antibody development compared to using conventional tissue fragments
- improved quality of research results and subsequent analysis, since tissue samples are processed simultaneously in a similar way
NBS offers the following types of TMA and related services:
Harmonized TMA
NBS offers a unique set of harmonized TMA for analysis, complying with all the requirements of the US, European and Russian regulators. Our harmonized TMA comprises 37 normal human tissues, with each tissue being represented in six replicates:
- three biological replicates from three donors (from two males and one female for nonreproductive organs, from three males or females for reproductive organs)
- two technical replicates (two from each donor)
A patented feature of harmonized TMAs is that one matrix block contains tissues with similar physicochemical properties and morphofunctional characteristics, which increases the quality of slides made from such blocks and the repeatability of analysis results. This significantly reduces costs of antibody development compared to using conventional tissue fragments.
Customized TMA
NBS possesses all essential scientific and technical resources that make it possible to produce TMA with the required set of tissues for a specific study in the shortest time possible. Both normal tissues and tissues belonging to following clinical areas can be represented in TMA:
- Oncological diseases,
- Cardiovascular diseases,
- Hematological diseases,
- Rheumatological / autoimmune diseases,
- Endocrine and metabolic diseases,
- Population groups.
Supported by
List of tissues:
Bladder
Cholic bubble
Blood (clot)
Bone marrow
Mammary gland
Cerebellum
Cortex
Colon
Blood vessel
Eye
Fallopian tube
Stomach
Ileum
Heart
Kidney
Liver
Lung
Lymph node (peripheral)
Ovary
Pancreas
Parathyroid gland
Peripheral nerve
Pituitary
Placenta
Prostate
Salivary gland
Skin
Spinal cord
Spleen
Skeletal muscle
Testicle
Thymus
Thyroid gland
Tonsil
Ureter
Cervix uteri
Uterine endometrium
In addition to human tissue samples, NBS offers harmonized and customized samples from the tissues of non-human primates and other lab animals.
TMA research
NBS offers a turnkey service for histological and immunohistochemical (IHC) studies. The list of services includes:
- Development of an individualized Protocol for histological / IHC research
Staining with hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) - Histological analysis of stained preparations
- Specialized staining (carmine, methyl green fuchsin, Congo, Sudan, methylene blue, etc.) by progressive and regressive, direct and indirect methods
- Immunohistochemical staining with commercial research antibodies
- Control immunohistochemical staining with antibodies to actin/vimentin/von Willebrand factor/etc.
- IHC detection of nonspecific sorption of secondary detection systems in the preparations
- Evaluation of immunohistochemical adsorption of antibody-based candidate drugs or diagnostics
- Evaluation of immunohistochemical cross-reactivity of antibody-based drugs
- Scanning of histo-and immuno-stained samples with Leica/3D Histech scanning light microscope at 20x or 40x magnification, with digital image recording
- Optical microscopic computer analysis of the intensity and / or area of immuno-staining of histological preparations
- Sample report.