Microassay for prostatic androgen receptors correlated with quantitative histological assessment.

A new microassay in which cryostat sections of prostate tissue were used to provide the source of soluble androgen receptor for biochemical assay, was devised using an isoelectric focusing method, with [3H]-mibolerone as the androgenic radioligand. Adjacent cryostat sections from the same tissue block were stained for diagnostic and quantitative histological assessment. The assay was used to illustrate variations in tissue androgen receptor concentration for correlation with epithelial cell content in benign prostate hyperplasia and prostatic cancer, and to show the effects of androgen receptor concentration of resection of prostatic tissue by electroresection. The results indicate that the heat in electroresection renders prostatic tissue unsuitable for androgen receptor assays, and suggest that knowledge of the cellular composition of carcinomatous prostates may be of importance in the full assessment of androgen receptor assay results. This method incorporates both a biochemical assay and histological assessment of the assayed tissue on near-facsimile sections, an advantage over conventional biochemical assays.