i would agree with others that local tap water is not the best plan.  a
practical approach would be to purchase a gallon of distilled water from a
local convenient store or drug store chain when you get to your destination.
it will cost you a couple of bucks for the gallon.  a few years ago our
still (water) was down and we needed water to reconstitute lyopholized
reagents for the chemistry analyzer.  the service rep from the vendor
(Hitachi) recommended the water source i mentioned above.  all the controls
came in fine --- since it worked at the precision of a chemistry analyzer it
should be fine for your application.

my first thought was to suggest you make buffer up with tap water in your
lab and compare it to buffer made up with distilled water.  but there is no
guarentee that the tap water of your destination will be as pristine as the
water in the wilds of Montana.


good luck,

rob

-----Original Message-----
From: Gayle Callis [mailto:uvsgc@montana.edu]
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 2:22 PM
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: Tap water for IHC rinse buffers


In helping set up a wet workshop, do you think it would harm the
immunostaining if tap water (in a pinch!) is substituted for distilled
water to make up TRIS buffers.  A concentrated stock TRIS buffer would be
diluted with the tap water to obtain working buffer.   

If tap water can be used, it would save time, money and hauling a large
amount of distilled water.

I presume one problem would be chlorine content and pH changes.  

Has anyone tried this?  What were the results?  If you tried this, did you
ever test pH of water before making up buffer?  

Fingers crossed, waiting for a positive answer on using tap water!! 

   


Gayle Callis
MT,HT,HTL(ASCP)
Research Histopathology Supervisor
Veterinary Molecular Biology - Marsh Lab
Montana State University - Bozeman
19th and Lincoln St
Bozeman MT 59717-3610

406 994-6367 (voice mail)
406 994-4303 (FAX)

email: UVSGC@montana.edu



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