[Histonet] Myelin stain with Gold chloride

[Benoît Delatour]

Dear histoneters,

We are currently trying to use the gold chloride (GC) method (Schmued, 
Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry 38, 717, May, 1990) to 
provide quantitative assessment of myelination / demyelination in mouse 
brain tissue. From the literature it appears that optical densities of 
GC or myelin basic protein immunostained material both allow good 
evaluation of myelin contents in fiber tracks.
Our concern is the following : we have setup two GC protocols, method 1 
that gives an overall low but significant staining (good labeling of 
major fiber pathways but radiating myelinated fibers in the cortex are 
only weakly stained), and method 2 that provides very strong myelin 
staining including fibers in the isocortex and the hippocampus. We are 
wondering which protocol is the most suitable for quantitative analysis 
of myelin. In our experiments, we found with method 1 differences in the 
myelination of corpus callosum between our experimental groups. However 
using method 2, it seems that these differences are strongly attenuated 
- we think this might be due to some background overstaining or 
saturation effect that could obliterate subtle differences in 
myelination between animals.
I thank you very much in advance for all your answers and comments,

B. Delatour


-- 
Laboratoire de Neurobiologie de l'Apprentissage,
de la Mémoire & de la Communication,
NAMC, CNRS UMR 8620, Bât 446
Université Paris-Sud
91405 Orsay Cedex, FRANCE
Tel    33 (0)1 69 15 49 88
Fax    33 (0)1 69 15 77 26
Email  benoit.delatour <@t> u-psud.fr
Web    http://www.namc.u-psud.fr

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