Heat-Assisted Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization

Microwave Heat-Assisted Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization 

Intermittent microwave heating has been used for enhancing FISH signals in the paraffin-embedded tissue sections of gastrointestinal neoplasia (see page 458) (Kitayama et al., 2000). The processing of these tumors is known to be particularly difficult because of the presence of necrosis and contamination with inflammatory and normal stroma cells and poor attachment of paraffin sections to the slide. 

The second example of the use of the intermittent heating is for identifying centromeres in gastric cancer cells (Kitayama et al., 1999). A panel of 17 centromeric specific a-satellite probes was used for detecting chromosomal instability in these cells. The study of centromeres is important because chromosomal abnormalities are a well-known characteristic of human cancers. 

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