IHC quiz | Abcam

Question 1. Which step should you include in IHC to prevent non-specific binding of antibodies to the tissue?

a. Fixation

b. Antigen retrieval

c. Blocking

d. Permeabilization

Question 2. What is the main advantage of paraffin-embedded sections compared to frozen ones in IHC?

a. Better preserved tissue morphology

b. No need to dewax sections before immunostaining

c. Do not require antigen retrieval

d. All the above

Question 3. What is the advantage of heat-induced epitope retrieval (HIER) compared to enzymatic epitope retrieval (PIER)?

a. Allows for gentler epitope retrieval

b. Does not require optimization

c. Useful for epitopes that are difficult to retrieve

d. All the above

Question 4. What should you consider when choosing a primary antibody for IHC?

a. Antibody specificity

b. Antibody clonality

c. Antibody host species

d. All the above

Question 5. What is the main advantage of indirect compared to direct immunodetection?

a. Less cross-species reactivity

b. Signal amplification

c. Less flexibility

d. All the above

Question 6. What can serve you as endogenous tissue background control in IHC?

a. a section from a tissue known to express your protein of interest

b. a section from a tissue known not to express your protein of interest

c. a section from the tissue before applying the primary antibody

d. a tissue section incubated with pre-absorbed antibody instead of the primary antibody

Question 7. If your tissue staining has a high background, which troubleshooting tip should you try?

a. Titrate the amount of antibody used

b. Decrease the blocking incubation period

c. Decrease the number of washing steps

d. All the above

Question 8. If you experience no staining with IHC, which troubleshooting tip should you try?

a. Include a positive control tissue

b. Test a series of dilutions for your antibody

c. Optimize your antigen retrieval method

d. All the above

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