Determination of in situ tissue neuropeptides by capillary immunoelectrophoresis Original Research Article

Neuropeptide modulation of host defenses is associated with a number of clinical conditions in which tissue injury is caused by a process called neurogenic inflammation. Monitoring of neuropeptide concentrations during both disease episodes and therapy has proven difficult due to a lack of suitable procedures available for correlating laboratory evaluations with disease activity. In an attempt to overcome this problem, a technique has been developed which determines neuropeptide concentrations present in sections of tissue biopsies. The technique involves micro-dissection of morphologically defined areas of frozen sections obtained from routine pathological or clinical examination, followed by analysis of the in situ neuropeptides by immunoaffinity capillary electrophoresis. In this procedure, immobilized antibodies are used to capture the analytes of interest prior to resolution by capillary electrophoresis and detection by laser-induced fluorescence. One advantage of the system is that it provides a relatively rapid technique for measuring a number of selected analytes. It also eliminates the need for pre-analysis clean up of the labeled sample, as such materials are flushed through the capillary prior to release of the captured analytes.