Glen Dawson  BS, HT & QIHC (ASCP), Lead IHC Technologist, Milwaukee WI 
inquires:

>>I have a pathologist who is very interested in a cyclin E antibody. She has 
no vendor information so I am hoping some kind soul can direct me to someone 
out there who has this commercially available. I need it for 
immunohistochemistry on formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue.<<

Uh, oh - I think you may have a problem here. I suspect your pathologist has 
been descended on by an oncologist who has just read "Cyclin E and survival 
in patients with breast cancer" by Khandan Keyomarsi PhD and a cast of 
thousands (not including a pathologist) at M.D. Anderson, in the New England 
Journal of Medicine 14 Nov 2002;347:1566-1575, with an editorial in the same 
number of the journal (pages 546-7). They use a frozen-tissue method which 
has considerable predictive value for adverse prognosis, while the 
immunohistochemical method (they don't give a source for the antibody, but 
look at the bibliography) is of much less value, for reasons they say they 
don't understand. They specifically state that their "results are 
encouraging, but they must be validated in a prospective trial before they 
can be applied clinically." Since the value of cyclin E is going to be mostly 
for small tumors, an IHC method for it has got to be developed before it is 
going to be clinically applicable.

Show this to your pathologist - I hope it solves your problem - please let us 
know what happens. Has anyone else on this list had recent requests for 
cyclin E?

Bob Richmond 
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN
RSRICHMOND@aol.com