Rapid staining of ultrathin sections with the use of a microwave oven

Abstract

The microwave oven has many potential applications, ranging from tissue fixation to staining for light and electron microscopy. This study was planned to speed up the staining of ultrathin sections. The first set of grids was stained conventionally with uranyl acetate and Reynold's lead citrate solutions. The other grids were stained with the same solutions by microwave irradiation. The electron micrographs of grids stained using the microwave technique were as satisfactory as the grids stained conventionally. Microwave-treated grids demonstrated more uniform staining and less precipitate. The use of a microwave oven shortened staining time by approximately 38 min.

Microwave-Assisted Tissue Preparation for Rapid Fixation, Decalcification, Antigen Retrieval, Cryosectioning, and Immunostaining

“…For transmission electron microscopy, microwave irradiation also can reduce staining time with uranyl acetate and lead citrate [24, 58]. …”

Microwave-assisted antigen retrieval and incubation with cox-2 antibody of archival paraffin-embedded human oligodendroglioma and astrocytomas

“…This procedure found wide application and was often modified to accommodate specific requirements of different tissues or histopathological procedures. Today, these procedures are applied in a variety of histological protocols, such as, fixation, tissue processing, histochemical and immunohistochemical staining for light and electron microscopy, antigen retrieval, and molecular biology techniques (Ainley and Ironside, 1994;Cavusoglu et al, 1998;Giberson et al, 2003;Kahveci, 1993;Kahveci et al, 1997aKahveci et al, , 1997bKahveci et al, , 2003Kennedy and Foulis, 1989;Kok et al, 1988;Leong and Milios, 1993;Login and Dvorak, 1988;Minbay et al, 2001;Noyan et al, 2000).…”

Rapid contrasting of ultrathin sections using microwave irradiation with heat dissipation

“…The microwave oven heats the samples, resulting in the acceleration of chemical reactions and heating, as exemplified in the staining processes described by Cavusoglu et al . (1998).…”

“…MWI can also be applied to staining methods for light and electron microscopy. Cavusoglu et al . (1998) described a method for contrasting thin sections on electron microscopy grids using double staining, first with uranyl acetate, and followed by lead citrate.…”