[Histonet] Microwaving Sakura racks

[Lake, Kim S]

Last week I posted a question asking if Sakura autostainer racks held up in the microwave.  As usual, I got some great responses from the histonet community, and I wanted to share with anyone who might be interested, and for the benefit of the archives.

Thanks to everyone who responded!

--I have done it but they don't do well they will melt and become very brittle .

--You can microwave them. They don't tend to last as long, but where I used to work in Colorado we would dry certain slides in the microwave for around 5 minutes and still put them in the oven for an additional 5 minutes to make sure they were full dry. You can do a trial before going full speed ahead with it. I wouldn't recommend it all the time. We only did it on our morning special stain slides and if we were in a time crunch. It is still probably best to dry them in the oven.

--In my lab we routinely microwave those racks in boiling citrate buffer for 20 minutes, so they seem to be indestructible!
--If you refer to those brownish ones, they are made of hard plastic and can be microwaved. Remove the handles though.


Kim Lake
Laboratory Manager
Oral Pathology Laboratory
University of Iowa College of Dentistry
Phone (319) 384 4433
Fax (319) 353 5569