Hello, I have been using Bouin's fixative on my fish specimens. I had simply been killing the fish, slitting them down their belly and letting them lie in Bouin's overnight. This worked well to soften the tissue and in particular the brain case (I'm interested in the brain but the dissection is delicate and I'm clumsy). After trying some silver staining the results were not very good. I have since learned that picric acid interferes with silver staining (and fluorescent staining like FluoroJade-B) so no more picric acid for me.
My question is this: can I use Buoin's without picric acid? The solution is 75 mL saturated picric acid, 25 mL 40% formaldehyde and 5 mL glacial acetic acid to make 100 mL. If I simply left out the picric acid, replacing it with distilled water, would this cause trouble? I am reluctant to switch to PFA as this can destroy certain antibody epitopes whereas the Bouin's doesn't (so I'm told but I was also told that Buoin's won't cause trouble at all...). My other idea was to use PFA and then decalcify in dilute acetic or formic acid. Any suggestions or advice? Thanks -- Tyrone Genade http://tgenade.freeshell.org email: tgen...@gmail.com tel: +27-84-632-1925 (c) ******************************************************************************** Romans 6:23: The gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. To find out how to receive this FREE gift visit http://www.alpha.org. _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet