Tissue Microarrays Open Up New Research Avenues
Tissue microarrays (TMA) let investigators explore molecular targets at the DNA, RNA or protein level in thousands of tissue specimens simultaneously. By revealing the cellular localization, prevalence and clinical significance of candidate genes, TMAs are ideally suited for the genomics-based diagnostic and drug target discoveries that are revolutionizing medicine. Researchers can use TMAs to discover diagnostic, prognostic, or drug responsiveness biomarkers, as well as to uncover new drug targets for cancers and other diseases.
TMAs offer a number of advantages compared with conventional techniques:
- Automated analyses, which can increase the speed of investigations by more than 100-fold;
- Use of archived tissue often not appropriate for other high-throughput genomic and proteomic techniques;
- Consecutive tissue sections that researchers can use to analyze hundreds of molecular targets.
NDRI's Tissue Microarrays
NDRI is uniquely positioned to recover a wide variety of high quality tissues from both normal donors and those with common or rare diseases. NDRI introduced its first TMA in 2006.
Prostate Cancer TMA
Immensely useful to prostate cancer researchers, ProstArray is comprised of 24 prostate cases with four tumor cores per case. These cores are taken from central, peripheral and transitional zones of the tumor. Eight cases are arrayed per block. Gleeson scores are also provided.
Pan-Cancer TMA
NDRI now offers a new 5-block pan-cancer TMA comprising 478 cases. These cases represent more than 20 major tumor classes, including breast, ovarian, endometrial, colorectal, stomach, pancreas, lung, head/neck, bladder, prostate, testicular, renal, thyroid, neuroendocrine, adrenal, lymphoma, sarcoma, melanoma. The TMA also includes rare cancers.
NDRI will be expanding its offering of TMA in the future. To find out more information, please contact us at 800-222-6374.