University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Tissue Procurement and Processing Core

Overview

The overall mission of the Tissue Procurement and Processing (TPP) Core is to facilitate access and usage of tissues and services to meet the specialized needs of the diabetes research community to expedite and catalyze innovative diabetes research at UC AMC. We provide resources to assist DRC investigators with the acquisition and processing of rodent and human tissue, and specialized cell lines that are broadly required for diabetes research.

The Tissue procurement and processing core consists of two service sections – (1) Tissue & cell distribution services, and (2) Histology analysis services.

Tissue & Cell distribution

1. Isolation of islets and other tissues from rodents

The following rodent islet isolation services are available.

-Rodent islet & tissue isolation service

-Training for rodent islet isolation

-Reagents for rodent islet isolation – Optimized reagents for islet --isolation such as collagenase are available.

2. Human islets

Human islets are available from the University of Alberta Edmonton Islet Isolation and Distribution Program. The core arranges distribution of human islet samples for registered DRC investigators.

3. Other human tissues

The core arranges access to fresh and viable human tissue specimens with de-identified clinical data (partner with the University of Colorado Biorepository Core Facility in the Department of Pathology).

4. Cell line distribution

List of cell lines available

Histological analysis

1. Embedding, Sectioning & Staining services

We provide tissue fixation, embedding, and sectioning services on request. Standard staining services listed below are available as well.

-Paraffin embedding

-Sectioning (paraffin & frozen sections)

-H&E staining

-Immunohistochemical Staining (upon request)

2. Access to Instruments

The following instruments are available. The core provides training for usage of instruments upon request.

-Tissue processor (Miles Scientific Tissue-tek VIP)

-Automated embedding system (Leica)

-Microtomes (RMC)

-Cryostats (Microm 325)

-High-throughput quantitative pathological & immunohistochemical -analysis (Perkin Elmer Vectra 3.0) (partner with The University of Colorado Human Immune Monitoring Shared Resource)

3. Technical assistance and training/consultation

Antibodies and other histological reagents that are commonly used for diabetes research such as insulin antibodies are available along with optimized staining protocols.