title: Creating tissue microarrays by cutting-edge matrix assembly.
abstract: Tissue microarrays have become widely adopted for effective parallel in situ analysis of hundreds of tissues placed onto single slides. Traditionally, tissue core punches are transferred into predrilled holes within a scaffold block of paraffin or other material, and sectioned transversely by a microtome to generate array sections. While core-based arraying has greatly advanced tissue analyses, some of the limitations include restricted feature sizes and numbers, variable core depths of unpredictable tissue quality and inability to array thin-walled, stratified tissue samples such as intestines, vessels or skin. Overcoming these limitations, the authors have developed a practical arraying method that combines serial cutting and edge-to-edge bonding of samples to assemble a scaffold-free array matrix -- cutting-edge matrix assembly. Using cutting-edge matrix assembly, the authors have successfully placed more than 10,000 individual tissue pieces on a single histology glass slide. The potential biomedical utility and ongoing efforts to further develop the assembly technology and analysis of high-density cutting-edge matrix assembly tissue microarrays is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Georgetown University Medical Center, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology, 3970 Reservoir Road NW, Washington DC 20057-1469, USA. ruih@georgetown.edu
authors.forename: Hallgeir
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rui
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: LeBaron
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D046228:Microarray Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D008867:Microtomy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical; D046509:Tissue Culture Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D016610:Tissue Embedding / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods