Estrogen receptor (ER) status in breast cancer is currently the most important predictive biomarker that determines breast cancer prognosis after treatment with endocrine therapy. Although immunohistochemistry has been widely viewed as the gold standard methodology for ER testing in breast cancer, lack of standardized procedures, and lack of regulatory adherence to testing guidelines has resulted in high rates of "false-negative" results worldwide. Standardized testing is only possible after all aspects of ER testing--preanalytical, analytical, and postanalytical, have been closely controlled. A meeting of the "ad-hoc committee" of expert pathologists, technologists, and scientists, representing academic centers, reference laboratories, and various agencies, issued standardization testing recommendations, aimed at optimization of clinical ER testing environment, as a step toward improved standardized testing.

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Improvements in the argon laser microbeam have made it possible to cause damage to chromosomes of tissue culture cells without prior treatment of the cells with a photosensitizing agent. These results have been confirmed independently in two laboratories.

The histochemistry of the "sexual segment" granules of the kidney of male diamondback rattlesnakes has been studied to define the nature of these androgenitally responsive granules. The kidneys were variously fixed and sections stained with a number of acid dyes, as well as by a variety of carbohydrate, lipid, and protein histochemical methods. The results indicate that "sexual segment" granules bind acid dyes strongly, contain some lipids and neutral glyco-or mucoproteins, much tyrosine and lysine, and some tryptophan and cysteine. A resemblance, concluded to be superficial, is noted between the histochemical properties of zymogen granules and the predominantly proteinaceous "sexual segment" granules.The existence of a macroscopically hypertrophied segment of the distal tubule of snake and lizard kidneys was first observed by Gampert in 1866. Not until early in this century, however, was the morphology and histology of this segment investigated. 'Tribondeau and Bongrand ('02), Tribondeau ('03), and Regaud and Policard ('03a,b,c) noted that in male snakes and lizards the hypertrophied, or "preterminal" segment of the renal distal tubule was greatly engorged with discrete microscopic granules. Because of this sexual dimorphism and the fact that this segment was found to enlarge seasonally in males at the same time that the testes become functional, Regaud and Policard ('03c) termed it the "sexual segment," and the granules it contains the "sexual granules." These authors' reports include complete histological details and reconstructions of nephrons of six species of snakes, and describe investigations of the effect of various fixing and staining procedures on the appearance of the nephron.Subsequent histological work (Reiss, '23; Cordier, '28; Courrier, '29; Herlant, '33; KehI, '35; Forbes, '41; Reynolds, '43; Fox, '52) on reptilian kidneys has dealt mainly with establishing species characteristics and demonstrating androgenic control of "sexual secretion." Fox ('52) in particular reviews the work on seasonal variations in the sexual segment. Although Forbes ('61) states that during the secretory phase the distal tubules contain "protein-like" granules, no histochemical or biochemical in-J. MORPH., 116 189-196. vestigations appear to have been done on this segment of the nephron of male snakes. This study reports a histochemical investigation of the nature of the sexual granules in male rattlesnake kidneys. MATERIAL AND METHODSBlocks of fresh kidneys from male diamondback rattlesnakes (Crutalus adamant e u s ) were fixed at room temperature for one day in 70% ethanol, Zenker-formol, and Lillie's ('54) aqueous mercuric formalin, and for two days in 10% aqueous buffered formalin and Bouin's fluid. The tissue was processed as usual through paraffin, and sections were cut at 6 u.A routine hematoxylin-and-eosin stain was done after all fixatives for general oversight. Since Regaud and Policard ('03c) reported a pronounced eosinophilia of the sexual granules following fixation in Zenker's fluid, staining with...

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