Staining Solution

IHC - A Powerful Tool in Research and Diagnostics

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a well-established and very effective microscopy-based method, allowing visualization of cellular components (e.g. proteins or macromolecules) in cells and tissue samples. The method can detect and localize cellular components as well as provide information about their biological state. IHC is frequently used in health care and pathology as a powerful tool in diagnostics and therapy but also in basic research for the analysis of proteins and their role in health & disease. Since the invention of the IHC in the 1940s, the range of applications has steadily grown due to an increasing availability of specific antibodies against diverse targets and advanced detection technologies.

While IHC is a well-established and robust technique, the establishment of an IHC assay requires precise optimization, since it depends on several factors, such as target molecule characteristics, choice of primary antibody and analyzed tissue or cells. These factors play an important role in the production of reliable and reproducible data and are often underestimated.