Immunohistochemical Staining of TLR4 in Human Skeletal Muscle Samples

Growing evidence suggests the involvement of TLR4, a receptor in the innate immune system, in muscle loss in uremia. Recently, we have evaluated TLR4 in human skeletal muscle from chronic kidney disease patients, by immunohistochemistry and image analysis. Unlike the commonly-used Western blot method, immunohistochemistry allows for the observation of protein distribution in the intact tissue while, image analysis, its quantification. In fact, our data highlighted our hypothesis that an enhanced TLR4 skeletal muscle cell expression contributes to the activation of the downward inflammatory pathway in uremic sarcopenia. In this protocol, we describe the procedure for immunostaining TLR4 in human skeletal muscle and for quantifying it by image analysis.