The major objectives of the Tissue and Cell Processing Core are to provide to Program Investigators: (1) the highest quality processing of tissue specimens for paraffin-embedded, frozen- and plastic-embedded sections; (2) high fidelity primary cultures from tissue and cell specimens; (3) high throughput staining to facilitate stereology-based tissue quantitative histomorphometry (for tissues) and immunohistochemical staining (for tissues and cell cultures). The Tissue and Cell Processing Core is an essential component of this AADCRC application, facilitating carrying out the aims of the three Program proposals, each of which rely on varied histologic analyses of human and mouse tissues and in vitro studies of human and mouse nasal, tracheal and bronchial epithelial cells. The considerable experience of Core technical personnel and leadership facilitates the development of optimized protocols to achieve the objectives of each Project and also provides consistent high quality experimental materials which are often shared across Projects. The expertise of the Core is essential to optimizing yield from human and specific mouse tissue samples which are difficult to obtain and prohibitive to replace. This Core was initially developed over IS years ago and has consistently provided the highest quality services to over 100 Program Investigators and their collaborators at Washington University and around the world. The addition of the Cell Processing Core provides pulmonary investigators with the ability to acquire high yield, carefully phenotyped primary epithelial cell cultures from human and mouse lung specimens differentiated at the air-liquid interface, used for mechanistic in vitro studies. The Core serves two other large center grants (a SCCOR in COPD and a PPG in Lung Remodeling) enabling considerable cost savings and efficient utilization of personnel with specialized skills in a high throughput environment.
The study of asthma pathogenesis in human and mouse models relies extensively on histological analyses and the use of primary epithelial cell cultures from asthmatics and normal controls and mice with varied genetic backgrounds in experimental models of asthma. The Tissue and Cell Processing Core facilitates these studies for Program investigators, providing expertise and techniques that each Project could not acquire in a cost-efficient manner. Centralized, standardized Tissue and Cell Processing also provides and consistent quality across Projects.
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