The mandible and maxilla of chicken's' beaks are porous bone covered by horny keratin so it is very likely that you will have to do a double procedure. First to soften the covering keratin with 10% sodium or potasium hydroxide aq. solution and later decalcify the bone. Since it is a poroues bone you will be able to decalcify it with EDTA, as is done with bone marrow core biopsies, and if you do it that way, the iron will not be removed, as it is not removed from the core BM biopsies. René J.
--- On Wed, 4/22/09, Farish, Craig <cfar...@csu.edu.au> wrote: From: Farish, Craig <cfar...@csu.edu.au> Subject: [Histonet] Finding iron in decalcified sections To: histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 7:14 PM Hi folks - I'd very much appreciate some help with this problem. I've been asked to performing the routine histo for a trial investigating the ability of chickens to sense direction. They are believed to have areas of iron rich tissue in their beaks which can detect the magnetic field of the earth in the same fashion as homing pigeons. The problem is this - to section the beaks I need to decalcify them, however I'm pretty sure that standard decalcification removes iron, at least partly. I know that the levels of iron in the tissue are very low and I've just trialled my technique on a pigeon with no success. I'm using a standard Perl stain (2% HCl + 2% K Ferrocyanide for 20 mins) on FFPE tissue which usually works very well for me, fixation is for a minimum of 24 hours in either 10%NBF or Bouins and decalcification is in either 5% Nitric acid or formic acid. Would anyone have any suggestions as to how to decal without removing iron or another stain which I could use in this situation? Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions, Craig Craig (Joe) Farish Senior Technical Officer Veterinary Diagnostics School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga, Australia c far...@csu.edu.au ' I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve immortality through not dying' - Woody Allen _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet