Digital Immunohistochemical Analysis of Tumor Expression and Localization In Human Breast Carcinoma Tissue

Indianapolis, IN

Many breast cancers today, nearly 80%, are invasive. When a tumor becomes invasive, it has spread past the confines of its original duct or gland and into other tissues. Over 90% of the tumors in this study’s tissue microarrays (TMA's) were identified as invasive ductal carcinomas; the most common type of breast carcinomas. In this study, three biomarkers were employed in the immunohistochemical analysis of tumor expression and localization in breast carcinoma tissues. Glut-1, C-Jun, and P-C-Jun were stained into a total of 42 tissue microarray slides (TMA’s) that consisted of 80-90 breast cancer cases and up to 12 controls each. Glut-1 is understood to stain mammalian plasma membranes containing the compatible glucose transportation protein. The overexpression of C-Jun, like Glut-1, has been linked to aggressive and advanced cancers in the breast. P-C-Jun is a modified version of the c-Jun antibody that can serve as a more specific means of determining the metastasis of some breast cancers. The Aperio whole slide digital imaging system captured images of each slide at 20x magnification. The Positive Pixel Count algorithm counted the number and intensity‐sum in each intensity range, along with three additional quantities: average intensity, ratio of strong/total number, and average intensity of weak positive pixels. Immunostaining was observed in vascular endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, macrophages, cytoplasm and/or cellular membranes to varying degrees with each antibody. Glut-1 was found to have the most artefactual staining. C-Jun and P-C-Jun both stained in lower intensity ranges and with less frequency than Glut-1.