I am not surprised to hear about bacteria in the glue, I have seen bacteria
in some of these slides and it would certainly play havoc with IHC staining,
but for some things like whole sheep vertebrae I have found no other way to
keep them on the slides.  Perhaps we could filter the glue solution thru a
sterile serum filter, but it might be too thick.  I will try it.
Patsy Ruegg 

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	rschoonh@sph.unc.edu [mailto:rschoonh@sph.unc.edu]
		Sent:	Monday, June 21, 1999 7:38 AM
		To:	Patsy.Ruegg@UCHSC.edu; jim.manavis@imvs.sa.gov.au
		Cc:	histonet@Pathology.swmed.edu
		Subject:	Re: RE: Bone IHC- Elmer's Glue

		A note of caution with Elmer's glue.  Several years ago (OK,
a lot of) when I
		was in a clinical lab., we used Elmer's glue for those
"Special Stains" that had
		a tendency to cause the sections to float free from the
slide.  I passed this on
		to the membership of the Michigan Soc. of Hist. at a
meeting.  If I recall (the
		age vs. memory thing), Jerry Mead dicovered that if one did
a Brown and Brenn or
		Brown and Hopps (etc.) on these subed slides you WILL get
false positives due to
		bacteria growing in the glue (no, I don't remember if they
are + or -).  He
		contacted the manufacturer and they stated that yes, they
were aware that there
		may be bacteria in the glue but that they had no intention
of doing anything
		about it as it is, after all a wood glue, NOT intended for
any  type of
		biomedical use.  I will say that it worked great though :-)

		-- Begin original message --

		> From: Patsy.Ruegg@UCHSC.edu
		> Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 10:34:15 -0600
		> Subject: RE: Bone IHC
		> To: jim.manavis@imvs.sa.gov.au
		> Cc: histonet@Pathology.swmed.edu
		> 
		>  Jim,
		> as long as you are staining for lymphocytes this method
should work for you.
		> coat plus slides with a 5% mixture of elmer's white glue,
mix with dionized
		> water.  stand the slides up and allow to air dry.  use
these slides to pick
		> up your your sections, let the sections air dry on the
glue coated slides
		> then put the slides into a 60 d C oven for at least 60
min. overnight is
		> prefered.  these sections stay on well, but if you are
ever doing any IHC
		> for collagen the glue will interfer with the staining,
give false positive
		> background.  t cell IHC should work without this
background staining of the
		> glue.
		> patsy ruegg  
		>

		-- End original message --

		best regards,
		Bob
		Robert Schoonhoven
		Laboratory of Molecular Carcinogenesis and Mutagenesis
		Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
		University of North Carolina
		CB#7400
		Chapel Hill, NC 27599
		Phone 
		office 919-966-6343
		   Lab 919-966-6140
		   Fax 919-966-6123 

		**Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member
of Congress ...
		But I repeat myself.-Mark Twain**