What Are Tissue Microarrays?
Tissue microarrays, also referred to as TMAs, are selections of tissue cores prepared in a paraffin block and arranged in a precise array fashion. Histological sections of the array can be cut from the paraffin block, resulting in thin slices of the paraffin-prepared tissue array that can be placed on a regular microscope slide. Tissue microarrays are used to conduct a wide variety of tests on numerous tissue samples contained on a single microscope slide, allowing for great speed and precision in experimentation. Scientists, for example, often use tissue microarrays to determine gene expression in normal and in pathological tissues in order to use genetics to diagnose various diseases.
