Monique

When I had to do serial sections of the metatarsal in the mouse foot, I
found the decal does not penetrate through the skin very well.  I used
formic acid for decal.  It depends what you are looking for.  If you can
remove the foot pad and skin, the decal will work much better. You do
have to decal longer than usual if you do not remove the skin.  I had
much better success processing them for an hour in each solution of:
one change 70%, two changes 80%, two changes 95%, two changes 100%, two
changes of xylene and two or three changes of paraffin for a total of
two hours in paraffin.  You do have to soak them in ice water to
section.

Janet Maass

Janet Maass
Monique Tourand wrote:

> Hello there,
>
> I just joined the histonet so this will be very helpful to me.  I
> received two mice feet to embed and cut, they were fixed then I
> decalcified them with Cal-ex.  I processed them as usual and blocked
> them, but now when I tried to cut them they won't cut, there is just
> a hole in the paraffin sections where the sample is.  When I cut it
> sounds as if the bone is still a bit hard so I soaked the blocks
> again in Cal-ex to see if that would help and I haven't yet tried to
> cut them again.  Does anyone esle have any other suggestions that
> will help or is there some other trick for cutting bone this is the
> first time I have had to do it.  Thanks for any help.
>
> Monique Tourand
> University of Alberta
> S.M.R.I