[Histonet] Mesentery tissue

[J. A. Kiernan]

The way I do mesentery is as follows. The
preparations are very well suited to lab
teaching.

1. Remove a rat's small intestine with the
   mesentery attached. Rinse in saline
   to get rid of blood etc.
2. Put a loop of gut over one end of a
   microscope slide, and pull on the
   mesentery so that it's stretched over
   the slide.
3. Trim round the edges of the glass
   with a sharp scalpel or razor blade,
   and scrape off any thick bits, such as
   larger blood vessels, from the middle 
   of the slide.
4. Before the preparation dries out
   completely, immerse the slide in
   a coagulant fixative (Carnoy's is 
   good) for a few minutes. Store the
   slides in 70% alcohol until you're
   ready to stain them.

Many methods work really well on such
preparations. Dilute toluidine blue will
provide spectacular metachromatic staining
of mast cells, for example. If you miss
out Step 4 above, you can expose the
preparation to hot formaldehyde vapour
and see the sympathetic nerve fibres by
fluorescence microscopy (a histochemical
test for noradrenaline). You can also use
staining methods for different types of
connective tissue fibres.
-- 
-------------------------------
John A. Kiernan
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
The University of Western Ontario
London,   Canada   N6A 5C1
   kiernan[AT]uwo.ca
   http://publish.uwo.ca/~jkiernan/
   http://instruct.uwo.ca/anatomy/530/index.htm
_______________________________
Donna Kumiski wrote:
> 
> I am looking for a protocol to stain and mount mesentery.
> In a past discussion I asked about mounting the tissue but I need
>  more details about the staining. I would like to do an H&E on the
> tissue then mount it on slides. These slides will be used in a
> Histology
> course for first year medical students
>         Donna
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
> Donna Kumiski     HT (ASCP)
> Medical College of Georgia
> Dept. of Cellular Biology and Anatomy
> CB 1202
> Augusta, Georgia   30912-2000
> (706) 721-6278
>  dkumiski <@t> mail.mcg.edu
> -----------------------------------------------
> 
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