[Diagnostic nucleic acid hybridizations for infectious diseases].
The use of nucleic acid hybridization techniques has expanded into many areas, including studies of gene structure and function, routine diagnosis of human, animal and plant diseases, and also forensic science. In situ hybridization is one of the techniques currently available for nucleic acid hybridization and has some distinct advantages compared with standard techniques such as dot-blot, Southern or Northern hybridization, in which the histological structure is lost during extraction of nucleic acids. On the other hand, immunohistochemical staining is one branch of histochemistry that has received considerable attention in recent years as a very sensitive method for localization of specific proteins and other antigenic macromolecules within tissues and cells. This technique has also been widely used for clinical diagnosis and in various fields of research in medical science and biology. Automation of colorimetric in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry would greatly contribute to the ease of introducing these techniques for routine pathological diagnosis and would improve the reproducibility of the assay. In this review, author will describe the development of an automated method for in situ hybridization and immunohistochemical staining using an automatic machine for both procedures.
Takahashi
T
T
Department of Bacteriology, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, Japan.
D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis*; D000818:Animals; D002690:Chlamydia Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*