Research progress and perspectives on the application of tyramide signal amplification-based multiplex...

Multiplex immunohistochemistry/immunofluorescence (mIHC/IF), which uses the tyramide signal amplification (TSA) technique, enables sequential staining of multiple targets in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples without worrying about cross-reactivity. This approach has received considerable attention from researchers over the past decades. This article aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of the research progress and perspectives on the application of TSA-based mIHC/IF.

We collected all the TSA-based mIHC/IF documents published between 2007 and 2023 from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database. CiteSpace, VOSviewer and Bibliometrix R Package were used to perform the bibliometrics analysis, including details about annual publications, countries, institutions, authors, journals, and research topics and hotspots.

A total of 873 relevant publications (811 articles and 62 reviews) with a time span of 17 years (2007-2023) were obtained. The number of annual publications started to increase rapidly since 2016. The United States (307, 35.17%) and the People's Republic of China (297, 34.02%) are the top two listed countries for both the number of articles produced and the citations. The University of Texas System (53, 6.07%) was the most productive institution. Integrating these results of hotspot and frontier analysis, TSA-based mIHC/IF provides significant benefits, particularly in neurology, cancer and immunology.

This study conducted a comprehensive bibliometric analysis for the use of TSA-based mIHC/IF. As TSA-based mIHC/IF and its associated imaging systems and analytic software progress, it will become the most promising tool for describing the variety of the whole tissue for a better understanding of pathological or physiological behavior.