Actually, it can be demonstrated quite nicely by immunohistochemistry.  Both
Novocastra and Chemicon have antibodies that should cross react with bovine
tissue.  The catch......you need to be working with frozen tissue......not
paraffin embedded material.
Carrie Kyle-Byrne, BHS, HT(ASCP)
Assoc. Research Scientist II
Antibody Core Lab
Signal Transduction Research

Exelixis, Inc.
170 Harbor Way
P.O. Box 511
South San Francisco
CA 94083-0511 USA

Phone: (1 650) 837-8023
Fax: (1 650) 837-7240
Email: ckbyrne@exelixis.com

________________________________________________________________
This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may
contain
confidential and privileged information.  Any unauthorized review, use,
disclosure
or distribution is prohibited.  If you are not the intended recipient,
please contact
the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.


----- Original Message -----
From: "J. A. Kiernan" 
To: "Greg Dobbin" 
Cc: ; 
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: IHC for Acetylcholinesterase?


> AChE activity is demonstrated by enzyme activity
> histochemistry in frozen sections, not by
> immunohistochemistry. There are several methods.
> Pearse & Stoward's "Histochemistry" Vol 3 has
> a substantial chapter on the subject, with
> instructions for several techniques.
>
> The neurons in enteric ganglia also show nicely with
> trichrome techniques applied to paraffin sections.
> More can be seen in longitudinal than in transverse
> sections. With either method you'll need a bit of
> positive control gut, (a) to be sure that the method
> is working properly, and (b) to get your eye in
> practice for spotting the ganglia.
> --
> -------------------------
> John A. Kiernan
> Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
> The University of Western Ontario
> London,   Canada   N6A 5C1
>    kiernan@uwo.ca
>    http://publish.uwo.ca/~jkiernan/
> ___________________________________________________
> Greg Dobbin wrote:
> > A pathologist at my facility would like to know if anyone is doing
> > immunohistochemistry (IHC) to detect acetylcholinesterase activity
> > as a diagnostic indicator for agangliosis (i.e. absence of activity
> > supports the diagnosis) or for any other reason for that matter (e.g
> > research??).
> >
> > We are interested in hearing from any labs doing such staining
> > (i.e. any and all species); but I will add that her patient is a
> > post-mortem cow.
> ____________________________________________________
>