2023-06-27 00:23:15
Monday 26 June 2023
In the clinical archives and pathologies of the world lies a vast resource: millions of tissue samples, testimony to any disease, that can be used for molecular and biomedical research. However, the preservation and long-term storage of the samples cause specific chemical changes in the tissue, which make analysis with new technologies significantly more difficult. Findings from this pool of samples have therefore often been misinterpreted in the past.
A team around Tim Steiert, Dr. Michael Forster and Prof. Dr. Andre Franke from the Institute for Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) of the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Campus Kiel, and the Medical Faculty of the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel (CAU) now has the complex consequences of conservation as well as solutions for scientific handling summarized in one review article. The work was published in the respected journal Nucleic Acids Research.
The tissue storage procedure was developed in the late 19th century and is still the most common form of preservation today: the tissue samples are chemically fixed with formalin and poured into paraffin, comparable to candle wax. They are therefore called FFPE samples (formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded) and up to now have generally been used for preparing thin tissue sections and examining them under the microscope. It is estimated that there are 50 to 80 million FFPE cancer samples worldwide alone – which could advance research into the genetic spectrum of tumors in the context of precision medicine in the future, for example using modern methods such as next-generation sequencing technology. In the publication, the team described the complex changes in DNA caused by conservation, analyzed the effect on modern genetic testing methods, and offered solutions to some of the difficulties that arose.
“With our groundwork, we want to introduce standards in the handling of FFPE samples in order to improve the reproducibility, relevance and effectiveness of clinical research in this field worldwide. We hope that this will result in better data quality in the relevant databases and will benefit research into targeted therapies in cancer medicine,” says Tim Steiert, first author of the study and research associate at the IKMB. “Only if the data quality in the clinical databases is comprehensive and reliable at the same time can the development of targeted therapies succeed and benefit the patients,” adds Dr. Michael Forster, last author and working group leader at the IKMB.
The work is a joint project in which the UKSH is in the lead with European partners in the EU-funded Horizon 2020 projects “EASI-Genomics” and “Instand-NGS4P” and with researchers from Spain, France, Norway, Austria and several German clinics “Our study is an excellent example of how, through Europe-wide cooperation, the expertise of many large national centers flows into a resource from which researchers all over the world benefit in their work,” says Prof. Dr. Andre Franke, co-author and director of the IKMB.
dr Michael Forster, head of the Liquid Biomarkers working group, last author, and Tim Steiert, first author of the article, (from left) in front of a modern IKMB sequencer for the molecular genetic analysis of cancer samples.
Original size image
The treasure in the archives and pathologies of the world – formalin-fixed tissue embedded in paraffin wax (centre) and thin sections made from it, which are used on glass slides for examination under the microscope. The analysis of these preparations using novel technologies is also possible, although it is a challenge for researchers.
Original size imageResponsible for this press release:
Oliver Grieve, spokesman for the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein,
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