Advances in immunohistochemistry (IHC) panels—most recently the advent of multiplexing in the early 2000s—have been instrumental to many of the most impactful insights into immunology and immuno-oncology, leading to breakthrough developments like checkpoint inhibitors for cancer and Janus Kinas (JAK) inhibitors for the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases like Crohn’s.
But the true potential of IHC multiplex panels to pave the way for innovative therapeutic approaches and better patient outcomes has been stymied by the technique’s tricky and time-consuming preparation. Antibodies must be selected and validated for specificity, sensitivity, and reproducibility and their potential for cross-reactivity thoroughly evaluated. Staining conditions have to be optimized for concentration, incubation time, and temperature. It can take weeks for a lab to achieve reliable results, delaying research progress and increasing the overall costs.
A new, pre-formatted solution from Fortis Life Sciences®—a pioneer in products and services to support and accelerate tissue analysis—promises to directly address this bottleneck with new IHC panels for identifying the presence and location of immune cells and biomarkers in the tumor microenvironment. The offering consists of eight PathPlex® IHC Panels using antibodies optimized to work together and validated by Fortis scientists for use with the Akoya PhenoImager™ HT and Opal™ Tyramide Signal Amplification (TSA) technologies thus ensuring detection of low-abundance targets. Staining protocols are included, and the starting antibody dilutions and Opal™ fluorophore pairings are included in data package.
The pre-formatted panels include the Immunosuppression PathPlex Panel, which identifies total T cells (CD3), cytotoxic T cells (CD8), and regulatory T cells (FoxP3) within tumor microenvironment. Antigen-presenting cells such as macrophages (CD68) or tumor cells (cytokeratin) express immune checkpoint ligands such as PD-L1, which inhibits the ability of T cells to attack tumor cells. The T Cell Maturation PathPlex Panel identifies total cytotoxic T cells (CD8), T-helper cells (CD4), memory T-cells (CD45RO), and regulatory T-cells (FoxP3) within the context of the tumor microenvironment. Tumor cells are identified by cytokeratin.
The Cell Proliferation and Metastasis PathPlex Panel identifies total T cells (CD3), cytotoxic T cells (CD8), and activated cytotoxic T cells (Granzyme B) within the tumor microenvironment. The inclusion of multiple tumor cell markers (cytokeratin, Sox10 and Ki-67) provides flexibility across multiple tumor types.
The other five PathPlex panels are Immune Checkpoint PathPlex Panel (CD3E, CD8 alpha, PD-L1); Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) PathPlex Panel (CD3E, CD8 alpha, CD20); Immune Localization PathPlex Panel (CD3E, CD68, CD20); Activated T Cell PathPlex Panel (CD3E, Cytokeratin, CD8 alpha, CD68, Ki-67, PD-L1); and T Cell Status PathPlex Panel (CD3E, Cytokeratin, CD8 alpha, CD4, LAG3, FOXP3). Fortis Life Sciences also has nearly 100 multiplex IHC-validated antibodies that can be added to these panels to study additional phenotypes.
If your lab is struggling with an IHC logjam or is looking to get a jumpstart on multiplex imaging, let these innovative, pre-formatted panels from tissue analysis expert Fortis Life Sciences deliver the streamlined, cost-effective solution you need to need to advance your work.
PhenoImager and Opal are registered trademarks of Akoya Biosciences. Fortis Life Sciences and PathPlex are trademarks of Fortis Life Sciences, LLC and its affiliates.