On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, alasdair wilson wrote:
> Could anyone give me the definitive formula for Karnovsky Fixative? There appears to be a number of different formulae.
> Thanks,
> A.Wilson
> 
Add 10 ml of 25% glutaraldehyde to 90 ml of 
neutral buffered formaldehyde (usually made from
paraformaldehyde), and this will be fairly close.
Original reference: Karnovsky,MJ 1965. 
A formaldehyde-glutaraldehyde fixative of 
high osmolality for use in electron microscopy.
J. Cell Biol. 27: 137A-138A.
  You should read this paper (an abstract) if you want
it to be exact. Most people use less glutaraldehyde
than the 4% in the original recipe.
Another reference: http://publish.uwo.ca/~jkiernan/formglut.htm
  This contains a short discussion (with refs) of
Karnovsky's fixative.
----------------------------------------
John A. Kiernan
Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology
The University of Western Ontario
London,  Canada   N6A 5C1
   kiernan@uwo.ca
   http://publish.uwo.ca/~jkiernan