A strategy for immunohistochemical signal enhancement by end-product amplification

We report a novel strategy, called end-product (EP) amplification, capable of enhancing the sensitivity of immunohistochemical procedures by about an order of magnitude or more. The strategy employs an antibody (anti-EP) to the product generated by the action of horseradish peroxidase on 3,3'-diaminobenzidine (DAB), and can be extended to the products of other enzymes as well, e.g., alkaline phosphatase. Amplification is the consequence of the ability of anti-EP to detect the multiplicity of product moelcules resulting from the turnover of substrate by a single enzyme molecule. The subsequent detection of anti-EP was by biotinylated goat anti-rabbit antibody, followed by avidin-peroxidase and DAB or by avidin-alkaline phosphatase and Vector Red. Further amplification can be accomplished by repeated cycles of the protocol. Anti-EP was produced by immunization with a bovine serum albumin (BSA) conjugate of a soluble polymer of DAB, prepared by a carefully controlled reaction of DAB with horseradish peroxidase and hydrogen peroxide. Coupling to BSA (and to RSA) was accomplished with glutaraldehyde. The titer of anti-EP was established by ELISA. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections of five cases of Hodgkin's disease and five tonsils with follicular hyperplasia were immunolabeled for the following lymphoid markers: CD3, CD20, CD30, CD45RA, and CD68. EP amplification with anti-EP was also applied to cases of CMV pneumonia and cerebral toxoplasmosis to determine whether this procedure could improve detection of the infectious agents. Immunolabeling of the primary antibody was performed by the avidin-biotin-peroxidase technique with DAB as the reaction substrate. The specificity of EP amplification was tested by demonstrating binding of anti-EP with Vector Red with the generation of a fluorescence end-point. There was complete congruence in the distribution of the DAB signal and the red immunofluorescence representing EP amplification. The intensity of the DAB signal was increased as much as 16-fold by EP amplification, making possible a reduction in the amount of the primary antibody by as much as 85-90%. Sensitivity also increased with respect to weakly expressed antigens and low concentrations of infectious agents.