Re: fixation/frozens/acetone

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From:"J. A. Kiernan" <jkiernan@julian.uwo.ca>
To:Histonet <histonet@pathology.swmed.edu>
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On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, Gayle Callis wrote:

> Acetone is considered a fixing agent, (I believe it prepcipitates the
> proteins in place, alcohol does this also - John Kiernan, to the rescue 
> on the exact mechanism of acetone/alcohol for this purpose)

    Gayle has it exactly right, as usual; no rescuing needed.
    There's no cross-linking or other chemical change, and
    the deformation of the shapes of the macromolecules can 
    exposes epitopes that were buried or otherwise not 
    accessible to antibodies when unfixed.  
 
 John A. Kiernan,
 Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology,
 The University of Western Ontario,
 LONDON,  Canada  N6A 5C1






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