New System for Immunohistochemistry Minimises Slide Handling

Merck Millipore’s new SNAP i.d.® 2.0 Protein Detection System for Immunohistochemistry (IHC) represents a much-needed advancement in the IHC workflow. The power of IHC lies in its capacity to localise antigens within tissue samples, thereby identifying the cell types and subcellular compartments in which antigens are located. This is particularly important for heterogeneous tissues (i.e., tissues made up of many different cell types, such as the brain and tumours), for which other antigen detection methods do not reveal spatial information.

Traditional immunohistochemistry (IHC) methods may be subject to process variability; for example, the process typically requires a lot of manual slide handling, as well as the use of pap pens and pipettes. It is therefore harder to apply consistent conditions across slides, which may negatively affect research results.

The SNAP i.d.® 2.0 Protein Detection System addresses these challenges by systemising the handling of multiple slides. It decreases slide handling time and enables parallel processing of up to 24 slides at once, reducing slide-to-slide process variation without incurring the costs of automation. In addition, the system speeds wash steps and allows antibodies to be recovered and reused, saving researchers valuable time and resources. The system produces robust and consistent staining, without causing tissue degradation or blotchy artefacts. It also offers the flexibility for researchers to perform Western blotting and IHC experiments in parallel, facilitating use of the system by multiple users at once, and also makes it possible to simultaneously assess relative abundance of an antigen (by Western blotting) and spatial distribution (by immunohistochemistry).