Diagnosis of the type of amyloid in paraffin wax embedded tissue sections using antisera against human and animal amyloid proteins.

Different histochemical techniques were compared on paraffin wax embedded tissue sections for routine classification of amyloid; the following methods were used: potassium permanganate, the indirect immunoperoxidase method using polyclonal anti-human amyloid antisera (anti-AA, anti-A lambda, anti-A kappa and anti-AF) and the peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) method using antisera against human, bovine, hamster and canine AA amyloid. Anti-human AA antiserum appeared to be a useful tool in this respect. Polyclonal anti-AL antisera may be helpful in diagnosing AL amyloid, but were less of value than anti-AA serum. Strong cross reactivity between anti-bovine AA antiserum and human AA amyloid deposits was found. This indicates that animal amyloid AA antisera can also be used for the diagnosis of AA amyloid in human tissues.