Accurate quantification of multiple biomarkers using microfluidic determination of tumor-specific antigenic sites in cancer tissues

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel immunohistochemical method for accurate quantification of multiple biomarkers on cancer tissues using a microfluidic multiplexed immunostaining system. Due to heterogeneity in cancer tissues, a conventional multi-channel based biomarker multiplexing strategy can cause missing of some biomarker expressions. However, our tumor-specific antigenic site selection strategy ensures obtaining of all biomarker signals, which are correctly attained from every microchannel regardless of tissue heterogeneity. Moreover, the microfluidics-aided blocking process shows superior blocking performance over the static blocking process and precise controllability by adjusting the flow rate.