[Histonet] Tissue falling off slides

[John Shelley]

Good morning histonetters!!

I received a project from an outside source to process and embed mouse hearts for this group. From what I could gather the specimens had varying times in 4% paraformaldehyde from 24-48 hours all the way up to 4 months. Once processed and embedded the specimens where returned to the group to cut. They are using superfrost plus slides from Fisherbrand and from what I could see the sections were coming off fine. The only thing I did notice is that when they put the slide in the water bath the tissue seemed to be repelled which from experience means that too much coating on slide and a hydrophobic environment is create. I asked them to look for slides from a different lot and cut additional sections and from those sections I asked them to air-dry only and others I asked for them to place in oven for 30-45 mins. at 56 to 60 degrees or until they did not see any more water droplets. They said the sections that they placed in the oven stayed on a little longer in the deparaffinizing steps but still fell off.  I know that it could be processing also but the specimens looked great when I embedded them. Any suggestions will be great, sometimes when your right on top of it you lose sight of other possibilities.

John