Dear Histonetters
I realize I may have been unclear in describing our routines for in situ 
hybridizations, and the reason for my plea for help. We routinely use 
coverslips or even parafilm to keep the moisture in on the slides, but are 
working with very thin sections which are often destroyed during the 
process of removing the coverslips. We had bought a special chamber for in 
situ incubations (a Grant Boekel SM 30) to try to avoid using coverslips 
but, despite various forms of keeping the conditions stable throughout, the 
humidity high and even covering the cover to eliminate a temperature 
differential, what we get are large drops of condensation on the upper 
surface of the chamber which drip down again onto the slides (which have in 
the meantime dried out slightly) causing wonderful patterns of artifacts 
and no reliable results. Using the coverslips inside the chamber gets us 
back to step 1 again and loss of tissue.

Then we recently noticed that Sigma produces "Probe-clip press-seal 
incubation chambers" (catalogue number Z35,947-5) which are 22 x 40 mm for 
clipping right onto the slide. They are in effect microchambers, covering 
but not touching the tissue. This in theory would be fine if they too dont 
dry out. They sell in packages of 25 and are re-useable. Now my original 
question: Does anyone have any similar experience and has anyone tried 
these microchambers?
thanks for your help
Karin
Dr. Karin Pittman
Assoc. Professor
Dept. of Fisheries and Marine Biology
University of Bergen
5020 Bergen
Norway

tel: 47 55 58 44 72 (direct)
fax: 47 55 58 44 50
email: karin.pittman@ifm.uib.no
www.uib.no