DOI: 10.1369/jhc.4A6285.2004 Volume 52 (11): 1503-1509, 2004 Copyright ©The Histochemical Society, Inc. Characterization of a Monoclonal Antibody, HTA28, Recognizing a Histone H3 Phosphorylation Site as a Useful Marker of M-phase Cells
Division of Oncological Pathology, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan (AH,KI,TT,HS,TM,MT); Department of Veterinary Pathology, Gifu University, Gifu, Japan (AH,HS,TY,TM); and Division of Biochemistry, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan (HG,MI) Correspondence to: Masae Tatematsu, Div. of Oncological Pathology, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, 1-1 Kanokoden, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8681, Japan. E-mail: mtatemat{at}aichi-cc.jp
Mitosis is a valuable indicator of active tissue proliferation but, other than morphological characteristics, there have hitherto been no markers available to detect only M-phase cells. However, a newly established monoclonal antibody (MAb), HTA28, recognizing histone H3 (H3) harboring phosphoserine 28, allows visualization with mitotic chromosomal condensation. In this study we investigated the use of HTA28 for immunohistochemical (IHC) detection of M-phase cells in the regenerating rat liver after partial hepatectomy (PH). Groups of three to five rats were sacrificed at intervals up to 72 hr after PH and proliferation was then assessed by IHC staining using HTA28 and other markers. The temporal pattern of the HTA28 staining index (SI) was very similar to that for the mitotic index (MI), also showing similarities to the bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling index (LI) with a time lag. The HTA28 SI proved to be higher than MI at every time point in line with HTA28 immunoreactivity maintained for all stages of M-phase. The spatial distribution of HTA28-positive cells corresponded with those of other proliferative cell markers. These therefore provide strong evidence for the applicability of HTA28 as an M-phase marker. We also showed that antigenicity for HTA28 is lost if tissue is not immediately fixed after sampling. (J Histochem Cytochem 52:15031509, 2004)
Key Words: M-phase cell cell proliferation immunohistochemistry histone phosphorylation rat liver partial hepatectomy
ASSESSMENT of the cell proliferative status of tissues is important for understanding tissue development, normal cell turnover, wound healing, and processes that occur in carcinogenesis. There are now a number of established methods (Alison 1995
Histones, the major protein constituents of chromatin in the nuclei of eukaryotic cells, are divided into two main groups, core and linker. Core histones are wrapped around DNA as octamers, consisting of two H2A-H2B dimers and one H3-H4 tetramer (D'Anna and Isenberg 1974
Cell proliferation can be induced by various methods in rodents. One well-known and highly reproducible animal model that includes all cell-cycle events is regenerating rat liver after partial hepatectomy (PH), because the liver cells are initially in G0 and then they traverse the cell cycle one to three times before finally decycling back in G0 (Wright and Alison 1984
In this study we therefore investigated the utility of the HTA28 antibody for detecting M-phase cells by IHC in regenerating rat liver tissue after PH. The temporal patterns and spatial distributions of HTA28-positive cells were compared with those of BrdU- and Ki-67-positive cells, as well as mitotic figures, in hematoxylin and eosin (H and E)-stained serial sections. Because some proliferating markers, such as PCNA (Hall et al. 1990
Animals Six-week-old male F344 rats were purchased from Charles River Japan (Atsugi, Japan) and housed in plastic cages on wood chips for bedding under constant conditions (12 hr light/dark cycle; 60% humidity at 22 ± 2C). They were fed Oriental NMF diet (Oriental Yeast; Tokyo, Japan) and tap water ad libitum. They were allowed to acclimatize for 1 week before the start of experiments, at which time they were 7 weeks old and weighed 140150 g. All animals were handled in accordance with the guidelines for animal experimentation of the Faculty of Agriculture, Gifu University and Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute.
Antibodies
Experimental Protocol
In experiment II (Figure 1B), six rats underwent PH and were sacrificed at 30 hr after PH. This sampling time point was selected to give a moderate proliferative activity and a minimal scatter from the results of experiment I. The right lobe of each liver was separated into 11 pieces and fixed under different conditions. In groups 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3, samples were fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin for 24, 48, and 168 hr immediately after sacrifice to investigate stability of the antigen against prolonged fixation. In groups 2 and 3, samples were soaked in PBS at RT for 2 and 4 hr, respectively, before fixation in formalin for 24, 48, and 168 hr again to investigate stability. All samples were subsequently processed routinely, embedded in paraffin, and sectioned for HTA28 immunostaining.
Immunohistochemistry
Analysis of Sections In experiment II, only mitotic figures (metaphase and anaphase cells) were counted at x400 magnification. One hundred or all mitotic figures (sometimes mitotic figures were less than 100 in one section) were counted and the percentages of HTA28-positive cells were calculated.
Statistical Analysis
Experiment I Temporal Patterns of Proliferating Cells The temporal patterns of HTA28-, BrdU-, Ki-67-positive cells and mitoses are shown in Figure 2 . HTA28-positive cells and mitoses demonstrated two peaks at 24 and 48 hr after PH. The maximal levels were 5.0% for HTA28 and 2.1% for mitoses at 24 hr. The HTA28 SI was consistently higher than the MI at every time point, and with statistical significance at 12, 30, and 60 hr (p<0.05). BrdU-positive cells in S-phase of the cell cycle exhibited three peaks, at 18, 36 and 60 hr after PH, and the maximum labeling index was 34.0% at 18 hr. Ki-67-positive cells increased rapidly between 12 and 18 hr, reached a maximal level of 70.7% at 36 hr, and then decreased slowly.
Linear Regression Analysis of HTA28 SI and MI A highly significant (p<0.001) positive correlation was found between HTA28 SI and MI, with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.933 (Figure 3) . The slope for the regression line of HTA28 SI plotted against MI was calculated to be 1.80.
Spatial Distribution of Proliferating Cells Figure 4A shows the distribution of HTA28-positive cells at 24 hr after PH. Most were found in the periportal areas of lobules within the first 36 hr after PH. At 48 hr, positive cells were mainly detected in the midzonal and central areas. BrdU-positive cells were also localized periportally during the first peak at 1824 hr. At the second peak, BrdU-positive cells were mainly localized in the periportal area but were also detected in the midzonal and central areas. Ki-67-positive cells were observed in the periportal and midzonal areas in the first 36 hr after PH.
Immunoreactivity of HTA28 Figure 4B shows HTA28- positive cells in each stage of M-phase, distinguished by the shape of their nuclei. HTA28 was found to react strictly with the nuclei, with no staining of the cytoplasm. Immunoreactivity appeared from prophase and was maintained throughout all stages of M-phase until telophase, although the nuclei in telophase cells were stained less strongly than in earlier stages. No mitotic cells were positively stained without the primary antibody, confirming the specificity (data not shown).
Experiment II
It is well known that H3 phosphorylation at serine 10 is closely linked to chromosomal condensation (Cheung et al. 2000
The temporal pattern of HTA28 SI showed the expected similarity with that for BrdU LI with a time lag of 6 hr, although the magnitudes of the labeling indices were quite different, presumably reflecting the respective phase duration (Wright and Alison 1984
The spatial distribution of HTA28-positive cells in the liver after PH also corresponded with that of BrdU-positive cells in the present study. It is widely accepted that DNA synthesis in the regenerating liver shows a periportal preponderance in the first 36 hr after PH (Wright and Alison 1984
The temporal pattern and distribution of Ki-67-positive cells found here were in line with previous reports (Gerlach et al. 1997
In the present IHC study, reactivity for HTA28 was maintained through all stages of M-phase from prophase to telophase, although telophase cells were stained relatively weakly, indicating primary expression of the antigen epitope in the early stages of M-phase. Immunoreactivity of HTA28 was found to decrease at the beginning of anaphase and to completely disappear during late anaphase in cultured cells with an indirect immunofluorescence technique (Goto et al. 1999
In experiment II, antigenicity was severely lost with introduction of a period before fixation, with
In the present study, we clearly demonstrated that HTA28 is a useful IHC marker of M-phase cells. HTA28 might find application to human and other animal tissues because H3 phosphorylation at serine 28, as well as at serine 10, may be conserved across species (Wei et al. 1998
Supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Cancer Research from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan, and by a Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. We thank Ms Hisayo Ban and Mr Tatsuya Wani for expert technical assistance.
Received for publication February 17, 2004; accepted June 30, 2004
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