Re: Quality of Fixation

From:"J. A. Kiernan"

"Geoff McAuliffe (by way of Histonet)" wrote:
> "Charles W. Scouten, Ph.D." wrote:
>> Is there a standard measure of quality of fixation?
> 
> The fourth edition (1976) of Lillie's Histopathologic Technique and
> Practical Histochemistey might be of help. Also John Kiernan's book. I
> think that much of the literature is too old to be online.

"Principles of Biological Microtechnique" by John Randal Baker
has the most readable account of the subject, despite being more
than 40 years old. Unfortunately the book is out of print. A
search
for the title with Google shows that you can buy it 2nd-hand for
$35. A bargain!  The biological electron microscopy textbooks
also
discuss the subject, and Manfred Gabe's big fat "Histological
Techniques" (1976; also out of print) contains useful discussion 
about the differences between cytological and microanatomical
fixatives for light microscopy.

There's a simple scoring system that can be applied to test
tissues
(rodent brain and kidney, subsequently embedded in wax) for
comparing 
the cytological and microanatomical effects of different
fixatives 
(Histochem. J. 17:1131-1136, 1985).
-- 
-------------------------
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/



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