Evaluation of the peroxidase-antiperoxidase method for demonstrating cell membrane B2-microglobulin

The peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) immunohistochemical technic was evaluated for its usefulness in studying B2-microglobulin (B2m) expression in the cell membrane of human tumor lines grown in athymic mice. Eleven human tumor xenograft lines expressing various amounts of B2m were used. B2m was assessed by three methods: PAP technic on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue; indirect immunofluorescence on frozen sections; and radioimmunoassay on soluble tumor extracts. The three technics gave comparable results, and the PAP technic proved to be useful in evaluating B2m.