Preservation of Haemal Nodes Fixed by Means of Two Different Aldehyde Fixatives: a Scanning Electron Microscopic Study

Abstract

SUMMARY:Glutaraldehyde is the fixative most commonly used in electron microscope studies of biological tissues, however it is often necessary to use samples which were not fixed in this fixative, even with the usual uncertainty of the results that may be obtained. The fixation is the more delicate step of the sample processing. Therefore in this work, the quality of preservation of haemal nodes fixed with two classic aldehyde fixatives: formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde we have compared under the scanning electron microscope. Our results showed that both fixatives were successful in preserving the morphology of haemal nodes components; however glutaraldehyde conferred satisfactory results mainly in the preservation of parenchymal cells, whereas formaldehyde was better for preservation of stromal fibres.

Morphology Control in Water of Polyion Complex Nanoarchitectures of Double-Hydrophilic Charged Block Copolymers through Composition Tuning and Thermal Treatment

“…To this end, the cross-sectioned specimen was prepared from the resin embedded PICs. As a pretreatment, the PICs were fixed by a cross-linking agent, in which GA was used as it is recognized to elicit less influence in the structures, and frequently used to fix the structures of cells, biological tissues − and also enzyme immobilization. , To further confirm GA fixing process did not affect the PIC structures, we also investigated another cross-linking reagent, which has different cross-linking mechanism, given an assumption that if the PIC structures were enough sensitive to the reaction, the PIC structures would be different between two fixing agents. Under this assumption, the PICs were fixed by GA and 1-ethyl-3-(3-(dimethylamino)propyl)carbodiimide (EDC), and the obtained cross-sectioned specimens were observed by TEM.…”