Transmission electron microscopy (EM) is used as an adjunct procedure in the diagnosis of a wide range of neoplastic and non neoplastic diseases and can be extremely useful in well chosen diagnostic dilemmas. The service is regularly inspected and certified by CAP, and is the only diagnostic CAP-certified EM service on NIH campus.
A total of 118 cases were processed last year, some consisting of more than one specimen. In addition, 227 research specimens were processed and evaluated to support experimental studies of various NCI/NIH investigators. Thirty three of these specimens required immunolabeling for protein localization at the ultrastructural level.
The diagnostic specimens that are submitted to our service for ultrastructural evaluation come from patients treated in NCI/NIH protocols and are diagnostically and scientifically challenging. Due to the nature of the NCI protocols, we are often the first to describe the unusual and unique ultrastructural findings of a tumor or disease, or the outcome of experimental treatments, as demonstrated in the following examples:
(3) EM findings were instrumental in the characterization of a novel form of leukodystrophy associated with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. A particularly distinguishing novel feature was our finding of myelin sheath abnormalities and cholesterol crystal accumulation in Schwann cells of a peripheral sural nerve biopsy, which led to the study and subsequent identification of abnormal lipid composition in sural nerve biopsies from 3 similar patients, thus supporting a demyelinating process.
(4) In collaboration with Dr. Mattes, we have shown that the CD20 and HLA-DR antibodies, which are used in the treatment of lymphomas, when bound to a B-lymphoma cell line are incorporated into a conglomerate of vesicles, which are shed from the surface of the lymphoma cells by a cytoplasmic pinched-off mechanism. This process may affect the therapeutic efficacy of these antibodies.
(5) EM was instrumental in characterizing pathways of cancer cell death induced by nelfinavir, a Food and Drug Administration-approved HIV protease inhibitor, which could be repositioned as a cancer therapeutic.
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