[Histonet] resins for embedding of PEG scaffolds

[PALMER Jason (SVHM)]

Hello all.

I am looking for a non-paraffin embedding medium for some rat tissues which have grown into a polyethylene glycol-based porous tissue engineering scaffold (a second component of the scaffold is PCL, polycaprolactone).  Being PEG-based, the scaffolds are essentially hydrophilic in nature.  Standard paraffin embedding gives sections which are somewhat crumbly and which adhere very poorly to slides for both routine and immunostaining, whether they are coated with APES, poly-L-lysine or chrome gelatin.  Hence I wish to try something else.  Have tried Technovit 8100, ie  a glycol methacrylate, but this led to unacceptable distortion / diffusion of the scaffold material, something which we do not see with paraffin.  I  don't have much experience with the different resins, but was wondering if one of the epoxy media - hydrophobic rather than the hydrophilic methacrylates - might be worth a go?  We want to do light microscopy, not EM, on the samples - at least H&E's or toluidine blue, but immunostaining would be great too.  Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks a bunch!

Jason

Jason Palmer
Histology Laboratory Coordinator
Bernard O'Brien Institute
42 Fitzroy St, Fitzroy Victoria 3065
Australia
tel +61 3 9288 4018
fax +61 3 9416 0926
email: jason.palmer <@t> svhm.org.au

Disclaimer : The contents of this e-mail including any attachments are intended only for the person or entity to which this e-mail is addressed and may contain confidential, privileged and/or commercially sensitive material. If you are not, or believe you may not be, the intended recipient, please advise the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies.
______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email 
______________________________________________________________________