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Technology Insight: identification of biomarkers with tissue microarray technology

Nature Clinical Practice Oncology volume 1, pages 104–111 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

High-throughput technologies have been developed in the hope of increasing the pace of biomedical research, and accelerating the rate of translation from bench to bedside. Using such technology in target discovery has resulted in the need for systematic validation of the targets in an equally rapid manner. For example, gene expression microarrays have highlighted many potential targets in cancer, and tissue microarrays have emerged as a powerful tool to validate these targets by measuring tumor-specific protein expression and linking it to clinical outcome. Automated quantitative analysis of the tissue microarray 'spots' is beginning to take the technology a step further, removing observer bias, and providing standards for quality control and the potential for high-throughput analysis. The validation required for translation of tissue biomarkers from the research lab to the clinical lab will probably rely heavily on the combination of tissue microarray technology with automated quantitative analysis.

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Figure 1: Construction and use of tissue microarrays for biomarker identification.
Figure 2: Multi-platform applications of tissue microarray technology.

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Acknowledgements

J Giltnane is supported by NIH/NIGMS Medical Scientist Training Program Grant GM07205 (JG). D Rimm is supported by a grant from the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Foundation for Medical Research, and grants from the NIH (R21 CA 100825 and R33 CA 106709), the US Army (DAMD-17-02-0463 and DAMD17-02-1-0634) and the Greenwich Breast Cancer Alliance. The authors acknowledge Bonnie King for FISH and Malini Harigopal for mRNA-ISH images.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. fourth-year student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Yale University School of Medicine in the Department of Experimental Pathology,

    Jena M Giltnane

  2. Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at the Yale University School of Medicine and the Director of the Yale Cancer Center Tissue Microarray Facility,

    David L Rimm

Authors
  1. Jena M Giltnane
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  2. David L Rimm
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Correspondence to David L Rimm.

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Competing interests

J Giltnane declared she has no competing interests.

D Rimm is a founder, stockholder and consultant to HistoRx, the Yale licensee of AQUA™ technology.

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Giltnane, J., Rimm, D. Technology Insight: identification of biomarkers with tissue microarray technology. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 1, 104–111 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncponc0046

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