An approach for determination of proteasome activity in small amounts of thyroid tumor samples

The accuracy of preoperative diagnosis of thyroid tumors is still insufficiently high. Determination of proteasome activity is a promising method for preoperative and/or intraoperative diagnosis of tumors of this localization, however, the method of its implementation involved obtaining a rather large tissue sample, from 20 to 70 mg. Separation of such a fragment from the tumor may complicate further histological examination. In this regard, the aim of this work was to determine the smallest amount of tissue sample suitable for measuring proteasome activity and diagnostics. The obtained results allow concluding that samples weighing 4 mg or more are suitable for diagnostic purposes. The approach to diagnosis using small amounts of tissue samples will preserve the structure of the tumor for further histological examination.