ApoTome to visualize E-cadherin and p63 expression in oral pre-cancer.

Precise histopathological localization of E-cadherin and p63 is of immense importance in understanding the integrity of oral mucosal stratified epithelium in normal and diseased conditions. Necessarily immunohistochemical imaging should have minimum bleaching impact on the dyes and ability to produce clear and crisp images. Here ApoTome provides an alternative with metal halide light source and structured illumination under the assistance of grids, along with integrated image processing modality to generate crisp images with digital interface. The current study demonstrates the applicability of such microscopic system in capturing fluorescence images of immunohistochemical sections of normal and precancerous biopsies in respect to the expression of p63 and E-cadherin in the epithelial cells. The ApoTome images localize the nuclear and membranous expressions of p63 and E-cadherin, respectively, with remarkable specificity. The findings on E-cadherin expression have enormous diagnostic significance as these images clearly differentiate the early and advanced stages of oral submucous fibrosis based on their cytoplasmic and membranous location. Thus, this study clearly depicts a remarkable performance of ApoTome with diagnostic significance.