A method of detecting soluble immune complexes in tissue biopsies

: Pretreatment of cryostat slices of tissue biopsy specimens with 30-50% water ethanol mixture increases the rate of detection of immune complexes in the intercellular substance of the epidermis to 100% in patients with acantholytic pemphigus. This method permitted the detection of immune complexes in all the examined cases with benign familial Hailey-Hailey pemphigus, which has never been reported heretofore. The authors believe that 30-50% water-ethanol mixture is capable of soft denaturation of proteins, stabilizes the slightly affine antibody-antigen relations, and aggregates soluble immune complexes into larger protein formations, this preventing their washing out from tissues.