Somuchofwhatweknowaboutthepathogenesisofhumandiseasehascomefromthe
systematic and careful study of histological material. Indeed, every
internal medicine discipline has its landmark papers describing the
clinico-pathological correlations. However, increasingly, it is
molecular and cellular biology that provides the necessary mechanistic
insights. For many years, it was thought that the two skill sets were
mutually exclusive, but we hope that this book shows that this is not
necessarily so.
Implicitinthescienceofhistologyisthepreservationandarchivingoftissue.PartIof
the book concentrates on the preparation of tissue, providing an
overview of fixation, embedding, and processing (Chapter 1), and in
Chapters 2 and 3, the required techniques for the retrieval of RNA from
histological sections. Both routine and specialist histological staining
techniques are provided in Part II. These include pro- cols for immuno
(Chapters 4-7), lectin (Chapter 8), and hybridization (Chapter 9)
histochemistry, histologicalstaining (Chapters10and11),
aswellasspecificmethods for the in situ identification of hypoxia
(Chapter 12) and apoptosis (Chapter 13). Finally, Part III details
advances in imaging (Chapters 14-16) and image analysis (Chapter 17). It
is hoped that this volume will provide molecular biologists with the
basic his- chemical techniques and histologists with the molecular
techniques to realise the potential of their resource. We are indebted
to the authors for their generosity in sharing these protocols.
