Research Project

Electroimmunostaining Design

Development of a method to accelerate immunostaining of thick tissue sections through electrophoresis.

Principal Investigator

Lee, Steve Seung-Young

Research Area(s)

Imaging

Abstract

The Transparent Tissue Tomography (T3) technique is a three-dimensional imaging technique that uses antibody fluorescence staining, D-fructose tissue clearing, and confocal microscopy to characterize tumors and other solid tissues within a relatively short period of time—about three days. However, due to the nature of antibody staining in thick tissue, this technique has some critical limitations: the technique may only be used on fresh tissue, the antibody staining across the tissue is heterogeneous, and takes around 18 hours—about a fourth of the overall process. To alleviate these issues, we aimed to design a device that could improve the antibody staining process through electrophoresis, which can pull conjugated antibodies through tissue using electromotive force. This design allows for more facile automation, and may additionally improve antibody penetration through the tissue compared to simple diffusion.