Elemental bioimaging of haematoxylin and eosin-stained tissues by laser ablation ICP-MS

Abstract

Haematoxylin and eosin are frequently used histological stains (“H & E-stains”) for the visualization of tissue structures, which is particularly important for the diagnosis of various diseases including cancer. These stains contain aluminum and bromine in their chemical structures, thus providing access for their visualization by means of ICP-MS imaging. Different tissues including appendix, lymph nodes, Fallopian tube and esophageal tumor were investigated. By means of this novel approach, orthogonal data in comparison to optical micrographs, commonly used by the pathologist, were obtained. Hence, different entities of the parallel or serial tissue sections can now be allocated to the manifold set of elemental information acquired by LA-ICP-MS. In surgically removed and H & E-stained human tissues, the images of aluminum and bromine with resolution down to 10 μm were generated. In addition, elemental distribution maps of carbon, aluminum, bromine and platinum in unstained and stained human esophageal tumor sections after Cisplatin therapy were generated, showing a further expanding the capabilities of this technique. As both stained and unstained samples showed a similar platinum distribution, integrity of the platinum distribution after the staining process could be verified. In addition, no significant background of aluminum or bromine in unstained samples was observed, showing the successful reduction of polyatomic, isobaric interferences by utilization of a collision/reaction cell.