Re: Marine animal fixation

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From:oshel@terracom.net (Philip Oshel) (by way of histonet)
To:histonet <histonet@magicnet.net>
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I can second this. All of my EM work was on marine animals, and 0.2 micron
filtered seawater was the best buffer to use. Only problem is that the
formalin might precipitate if the water is cold, say 4 deg. C or lower.
(This was lots of fun when making up seawater buffered formalin+glut using
water from the Ross Sea. -2 deg. C.)

Phil

>Humason, older edition, recommended sea water be used with the fixative,
>formaldehyde in your case.  Your marine animals will probably like it
>better since the salinity is important to maintain the isotonicity of
>the cells ((yours blow up!).  I guess on could say the seawater is a buffer
>in itself.  Once fixed, I don't know if you need to increase salt in your
>immunostaining buffer.  This is is sometimes done with buffers, for IHC.
>
>There is an artificial sea water recipe in this book, but requires some
>interesting salts, etc to make it up.
>
>Gayle Callis

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