Garbage In, Garbage Out: a Critical Evaluation of Strategies Used for Validation of Immunohistochemical Biomarkers

Overview

Journal Mol Oncol

Specialties Molecular Biology
Oncology

Date 2014 Apr 15

PMID 24725481

Citations 79

Authors

Gillian OHurley

Evelina Sjostedt

Arman Rahman

Bo Li

Caroline Kampf

Fredrik Ponten

William M Gallagher

Cecilia Lindskog

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The use of immunohistochemistry (IHC) in clinical cohorts is of paramount importance in determining the utility of a biomarker in clinical practice. A major bottleneck in translating a biomarker from bench-to-bedside is the lack of well characterized, specific antibodies suitable for IHC. Despite the widespread use of IHC as a biomarker validation tool, no universally accepted standardization guidelines have been developed to determine the applicability of particular antibodies for IHC prior to its use. In this review, we discuss the technical challenges faced by the use of immunohistochemical biomarkers and rigorously explore classical and emerging antibody validation technologies. Based on our review of these technologies, we provide strict criteria for the pragmatic validation of antibodies for use in immunohistochemical assays.

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