doi:10.1369/jhc.5B6851.2006
Volume 54 (6): 739-743, 2006 Copyright ©The Histochemical Society, Inc.
Protein Extraction from Formalin-fixed, Paraffin-embedded Tissue Sections: Quality Evaluation by Mass Spectrometry
Department of Pathology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California (S-RS,CLiu,CRT), and Calibrant Biosystems, Gaithersburg, Maryland (BMB,Clee) Correspondence to: Clive R. Taylor, MD, PhD, Department of Pathology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine HMR 204, 2011 Zonal Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90033. E-mail: taylor{at}pathfinder.hsc.usc.edu
A satisfactory protocol of protein extraction has been established based on the heat-induced antigen retrieval (AR) technique widely applied in immunohistochemistry for archival formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue sections. Based on AR, an initial serial experiment to identify an optimal protocol of heat-induced protein extraction was carried out using FFPE mouse tissues. The optimal protocol for extraction of proteins was then performed on an archival FFPE tissue of human renal carcinoma. FFPE sections were boiled in a retrieval solution of Tris-HCl containing 2% SDS, followed by incubation. Fresh tissue taken from the same case of renal carcinoma was processed for extraction of proteins by a conventional method using radioimmunoprecipitation assay solution, to compare the efficiency of protein extraction from FFPE tissue sections with extraction from fresh tissue. As a control, further sections of the same FFPE sample were processed by the same procedure without heating treatment. Evaluation of the quality of protein extracted from FFPE tissue was done using gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry, showing most identified proteins extracted from FFPE tissue sections were overlapped with those extracted from fresh tissue. (J Histochem Cytochem 54:739743, 2006)
Key Words: protein extraction antigen retrieval formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue mass spectrometry
THE APPLICATION of proteomics-oriented technology in cell biology and medical research has expanded greatly in recent years as scientists have attempted to reconstruct the structures and functions of the proteins within cells and organelles, seeking a better understanding of complex biological processes (Chen et al. 2003
Based on the principle of heat-induced AR technique, Ikeda et al. (1998)
However, two-dimensional PAGE has significant limitations for detailed protein analysis, including deficiencies in proteome coverage, dynamic range, sensitivity, and throughput. As a result, great efforts have been devoted to the development of nongel-based proteome technologies, particular those based on combination of chromatography and electrokinetic separation techniques. An integrated proteome concentration and separation approach, involving inline combination of capillary isoelectric focusing (CIEF) with capillary reversed-phase liquid chromatography has been developed for advanced mass spectrometry (Chen et al. 2003
All FFPE tissues used in the following studies were fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin at room temperature for 24 hr. Archival human tissue blocks were stored within 5 years. Early studies in our laboratory evaluated the protocol of Ikeda et al. (1998)
The next step, therefore, was to apply our experience of "retrieval" of protein antigens in tissue sections, as evidenced by IHC methods, in an attempt to achieve better results of protein extraction from FFPE tissue, based on the principle of the AR technique, including the heating condition, pH, and various chemical solutions (Shi et al. 1995
An optimal protocol of protein extraction was thus devised, based on these experiments, and was applied in the following study. Five FFPE tissue sections (10 µm each) were deparaffinized by adding 1 ml Octane (Sigma), vortexing for 10 sec, followed by adding 0.075 ml methanol and vortexing again. After centrifugation, the upper layer of Octane and methanol was removed, and the residuum dried in a hood for 23 min. Fifty µl of 20 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7 or 9) containing 2% SDS was then added to the dewaxed FFPE tissues sections, followed by heating at 100C on a heat block (VWR Scientific Products; West Chester, PA) for 20 min, then incubation at 60C in a incubator (Robbins Scientific; Sunnyvale, CA) for 2 hr. Two µl of the sample was used to measure yields of protein extracted from FFPE and from control fresh tissues subjected to an identical procedure. Identical measured amounts of proteins from each sample were loaded for analysis by SDS-PAGE and Western blotting to compare the results accurately. Although there were variations of protein yields among various protocols, the range of total yields was comparable (average 10,022.6 µg/ml in contrast to the fresh control of 11,524 µg/ml). A parallel study using human tissue from a resected renal carcinoma was performed to test and verify this optimal protocol. The SDS-PAGE patterns of protein samples of FFPE tissue sections obtained by boiling in pH 7 or pH 9 solution containing SDS, plus incubating in the same retrieval solution without heating, compared with samples extracted from fresh tissue taken from same case are shown in Figure 1 . It is apparent that the SDS-PAGE patterns of proteins from samples extracted from FFPE after heat-induced AR treatment are comparable with patterns observed on samples derived from fresh tissues (Figure 1). Western blotting showed clear band of ki-67 using monoclonal antibody MIB-1 (DAKO; Carpinteria, CA) indicating a molecular weight range of 395/345 kDa (data not shown). Thus encouraged, we evaluated further protein samples by the more sophisticated and sensitive method of mass spectrometry in collaboration with Calibrant Biosystems, as described in the following section. This study of human tissue specimens has been exempted under 45 CFR 46.101(b) and was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB #009071) at the University of Southern California. University Animal Care Committee approved protocols were used in all experiments.
Four samples of protein extracted from FFPE tissue of human renal cancer were analyzed by an online combination of CIEF with nano-reverse-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) (Chen et al. 2003 The resulting MS data files were peak listed by ltq_dta.exe (ThermoFinnigan). Peptide and protein identifications were made using Open Mass Spectometry Search Algorithm (OMSSA) (National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda, MD). Protein identifications are based on peptide identifications in the human International Protein Index (2.28) distributed and maintained by the European Bioinformatics Institute (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/IPI/IPIhuman.html). Peptide hits indicates the number of ions that met or exceeded the e-value cutoff of 0.05 set in OMSSA. Distinct peptides indicate the number of distinct peptide sequences identified. Distinct proteins indicate the number of distinct protein sequence entries in the IPI database which were mapped by one or more distinct peptide sequences. Reduced proteins indicate the number of distinct IPI protein sequence entries mapped by the number of peptide sequences unique to the database plus the number of identical protein clusters that contain identical distinct peptide mappings. Total proteins of the four samples demonstrated by MS are listed in Table 1 . It was surprising to see a large number of protein sequences clearly displayed after heat-induced AR, comparing favorably with the extract from fresh tissue. Also, most proteins of the four samples showed overlap (Figure 2 ), which indicates reproducible total proteins existed in the same tissue specimen. Potential reasons why fresh tissue yielded a lower number of total proteins may be the period of storage of this fresh tissue, diffusion and loss of protein, or denaturation during periods of warming (as on sectioning). A noticeable discrepancy of the quality of protein sample extracted from FFPE tissue by a protocol without heating treatment (Sample D) was found between SDS-PAGE (Figure 1) and MS (Table 1). Although SDS-PAGE showed a poor result of total proteins for this sample, a total of 962 proteins could be demonstrated by MS. In addition to the highly sensitive MS technique, protein digestion by trypsin and other reagents before MS analysis may contribute to improvement of protein quality as well.
The subcellular location of the identified proteins was assigned by the Gene Ontology database. More than half of the identified proteins have not been assigned subcellular locations by this database. The plots show the distributions of identified proteins with predicted locations over the total number of identified proteins with known locations. The plot distributions are in good agreement and show little variance (Figure 3 ).
Preliminary feasibility for extraction of nucleic acids and proteins from FFPE tissues based on the heat-induced AR principle has been documented, but numerous issues remain to be addressed to develop better techniques that enhance the quality and quantity of macromolecules extracted from FFPE tissues. Sophisticated molecular techniques, as exemplified herein by mass spectrometry, are able to be performed on protein extracted from FFPE tissue using the heating protocol described here, with the notation that variation among the four samples in terms of quality and yield require further study. However, this is characteristic of the random sampling nature of data-dependent experiments using MS. The apparent lower yield in frozen tissue may be addressed by use of a fresh prepared cell line sample compared with a FFPE aliquot. The presence of SDS was critical, and, with SDS, several AR protocols that had proved to be satisfactory for IHC on FFPE tissue sections also were satisfactory for protein extraction from FFPE tissue. Several strategies are available for future studies aimed at adapting AR-IHC protocols to AR-based protein extraction from FFPE tissues. It may be proposed that a two-phase approach be applied to protein extraction from the FFPE tissue: the first phase would be "antigen retrieval" by high temperature heating to break down formalin-induced crosslinking (Rait et al. 2004
This study was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant 1 R33 CA-103455-01. We greatly appreciate Puya Yazdi, a medical student at USC, and Hao Hao Huang, a student at UC Berkeley, for their efforts in doing some technical work for extraction and evaluation of protein from FFPE tissue sections.
Received for publication October 4, 2005; accepted November 27, 2005
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