[Consistency of two commercial secondary antibodies for immunohistochemistry]

Objective To compare the consistency of immunohistochemical staining between the two commercial secondary antibodies. Methods Eighteen common immunohistochemical primary antibodies were selected and positive and negative controls were set up according to the recommendations from the AD Hoc Committee of International Experts. Under the same experimental conditions, the DAKO automatic immunohistochemical staining platform was used to test two different secondary antibodies for immunohistochemical staining. The standard group for the secondary antibody was provided by the DAKO polymer system (DAKO EnVision FLEX, High pH), and the experimental group for the secondary antibody was provided by the Power-Stain^TM kit (Power-Stain^TM 1.0 Poly HRP DAB Kit for Mouse+Rabbit). Subsequently, the images were captured. A single-blind, positioning, qualitative and semi-quantitative scoring criterion was used for describing the positive stains by the experienced pathologist. Absorbance corrected values, measured area values and positive integral absorbance were detected by the digital pathology quantitative measurement in the same areas from the two groups. Then, the mean absorbance was calculated. Results The stains of all the samples from the two groups showed accurate location and consistent qualitative evaluation. No significant differences were found between the two groups in all the semi-quantitative scoring, including stain intensity, positive stain percentages and mean absorbance. Conclusion The two commercial secondary antibodies have strong consistency in the immunohistochemical staining.