Similar structural signatures were found in other cancer types such as skin 10, 11, ovarian 12, 13, prostate 14, and pancreas 15, 16.Ī variety of established methods currently exist to visualize collagen fibers in different tissue types. TACS-3, a pattern describing highly aligned collagen fibers perpendicular to tumor boundaries, was found to be negatively prognostic in human breast cancer 1. Tumor Associated Collagen Signatures (TACS) were first described as alterations in collagen orientation and deposition during mouse mammary tumor progression 8, 9. Collagen organization has been shown to be a promising biomarker for evaluation of wound healing, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, aging, and other processes including atherosclerosis and diabetes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Structural organization and distribution of the fibrillar types of the collagen family are important factors underlying the properties of tissues and play an integral role in many diseases including cancer. Consequently, it can be easily accommodated as part of regular pathology review of tissue slides, while providing clinically useful insight into stromal composition.Ĭollagen, the most abundant protein in vertebrates, forms the structural network of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in biological tissues.
This system does not require stained slides, but is compatible with histological stains such as H&E. In this paper, we evaluate previously described polychromatic polarization microscope (PPM) to visualize collagen fibers with an optically generated color representation of fiber orientation and alignment when inspecting the sample by a regular microscope with minor modifications. Despite all these advances, there has not been a significant effort to make it possible for clinicians to explore these biomarkers without adding steps to the clinical workflow or by requiring high-cost imaging systems. These parameters are now widely accepted as stromal biomarkers and linked to disease progression and survival time in several cancer types. Over the past two decades, fibrillar collagen reorganization parameters such as the amount of collagen deposition, fiber angle and alignment have been widely explored in numerous studies.
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