Hi Theodoro,
We routinely conduct IHC in bone and joint tissue within our lab although until recently mostly in mouse tissue. For mouse knee joint/bone tissue, the tissue processing, decalcification and IHC is pretty straightforward and the protocols outlined in prior publications by Pat Mantyh work pretty well for 20-micron thick sections. If you want to label thicker sections (80-120 micron) there are some considerations I can recommend if you are interested.
Working with human derived tissue poses several challenges including maintaining consistent and standardized methods for tissue processing, fixation and decalcification. We have found that signal to background ratio is improved if the samples are not postfixed for too extended of a time (approx. 24 hours) and if they are not paraffin embedded. You may want to reach out to Armen Akopian’s lab. They are conducting similar studies in patient TMJ samples as part of the Re-Join Consortium.
Chris