Tumor Assessment and Tissue Preparations

Creative Biolabs provides support for tumor assessment, customized tissue collection, consenting, and sample processing to meet the unique needs of the researcher.

Tissues Collection

Animals are euthanized, and specimens are collected. Blood is collected from sedated mice via cardiac puncture in blood sample collection tubes with K2EDTA and centrifuged to isolate plasma. Other interested tissues such as tumor, heart, liver, spleen, lung, brain, ileum, cecum, and colon, are collected and flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen. The collected specimens are stored carefully for further analysis.

The submission of a high-quality sample is a crucial component for research analysis and a successful pathologic evaluation. We can handle different specimen types with a defined protocol for sample preparation, processing, and sectioning.

Tumor Assessment

After the dissection of mice, the number and size of tumors are counted and measured blindly. Except for the rough assessment, internal tumors can be quantitatively assessed. Accordingly, many sophisticated methods have been devised to follow such tumors in vivo and in vitro.

• Direct imaging methods, such as magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography, are useful in this regard but they can only detect relatively large tumors and require expensive equipment.
• Imaging with fluorescent or luminescent markers provides much greater sensitivity but also requires genetic engineering of the cell lines to introduce markers. The introduction of such markers itself can alter the growth characteristics of tumors. Moreover, direct or indirect imaging methods require that animals are anesthetized and the imaging process takes a considerable amount of time.
• Hematoxylin and eosin staining (H&E) is a classic means to present the details of a tumor. It is a relatively simple stain to carry out on paraffin or frozen sections and can demonstrate a wide range of normal and abnormal cell and tissue components.
• Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a highly specific and sensitive method based on the detection of antigens and is primarily used for the identification of specific infectious organisms, diagnosis of tumor entities, and prognostic evaluation of tumors.

Creative Biolabs offers a range of services, including but not limited to:

• Tumor assessment by in vivo imaging.
• Specimen collection, handling, and processing of tissues, blood, and other fluids.
• Biospecimen temporary and long-term storage.
• Tissue fixation, processing, and embedding, H&E stain, IHC analysis, etc.
• Nucleic acid isolation from snap-frozen tissue or other samples.
• Tumor assessment and interpretation of data

If you are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us.

Reference

1. Rago, C.; et al. Serial assessment of human tumor burdens in mice by the analysis of circulating DNA. Cancer research. 2007, 67(19): 9364-9370.

For Research Use Only | Not For Clinical Use