Jan,

We usually store our tissues in 70% ETOH at 4oC after fixation until
they can be put on the processor.  I have also had tissues shipped to me
from Europe and Canada in phosphate buffer (not PBS) after 48 hour NBF
fixation with no loss of antigenicity of cell cycle markers.  I can't
really say how other antbodies would be affected.  

Jan Shivers wrote:
> 
> Usually the tissue samples I receive have been optimally fixed (time-wise)
> in formalin and promptly embedded into paraffin.  Today I received a call
> from a researcher out of state who wants to send me some samples, but cannot
> get his fixed tissue processed into paraffin within a 24-hour period after
> start of fixation.  He wants to know what storage alcohol he should switch
> the samples into until embedding, and I became brain-dead.  Can someone help
> me out here PDQ?  Is it 70% ethanol or some other percentage?  Is there a
> better storage medium than ethanol?  I have received some cases in PBS
> (post-formalin-fixation), but those staining results were less than optimal.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Jan Shivers
> Univ. of Minn. Vet. Diag. Lab

-- 
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 

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you
nothing; it was here first. 
Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910)