Novel Histochemical Stain for Tinctorial Detection of Cancer and Neoplastic Cells

Zetiq has introduced a histochernical stain that claims to tinctorially identify cancer and neoplastic cells. Because of the potential importance of such a capability, we undertook to investigate Zetiq's CellDetect (R) staining technology as applied to cultured cell lines as well as an initial sample of clinical cases. This goal was pursued by investigating four types of comparisons: 1) cancer cell lines before and after differentiation; 2) cervical squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC) biopsies to non-neoplastic squamous epithelium; 3) SCCs to neoplastic, nonmalignant squamous epithelium; and 4) neoplastic squamous cells to non-neoplastic squamous cells in cytological preparations. The clinical material was as stained with hematoxylin and eosin (biopsies) or Pap (cytlogies) for diagnostic purposes. We found that all CellDetect (R) stained cells exhibited one of the two tinctorial outcomes. Cell lines with malignant phenotype uniformly had red/purple cytoplasm, whereas the differentiated phenotype changed the color to blue/green. Moreover, these two color values are sufficiently distinct that they can be readily distinguished quantitatively with an ELISA reader when applied to cells in tissue culture. Biopsies of SCC and non-neoplastic tissues exhibit the same two color values: cancers had red/purple cytoplasm, whereas non-neoplastic tissues were green/blue stained. In contrast, neoplastic, nonmalignant tissues (dysplasias) stained red/purple, similar to SCCs. Cytological preparations gave similar results: neoplastic cells stained red/purple, whereas non-neoplastic cells exhibited green blue cytoplasm. The study demonstrated that the staining was rapid and reproducible. Conclusion: The CellDetect (R) stain allows detecting, cancer and neoplastic cells tinctorially based on a rapid, reproducible histochemical process. (The J Histotechnol 32(3):97-105, 2009)