[Histonet] Bouin's without the picric acid?

[Rene J Buesa]

Bouin's without picric acid is an oxymoron, is like saying "neutral buffered formalin without the buffer".
By definition, and resulting from the original formula, Bouin requires picric acid, that is the whole rationale behind this fixative.
There are "commercial" products called "Bouin" that do not contain picric acid, and they are just not Bouin, they may be anything else, but not Bouin. Why? Because a commercial manufacturer can call anything as long as they can sell it, but that is no guarantee to be true.
In your case if you use "Bouin without picric acid" you may improve the silver staining, but you will no longer be able to obtain the softening of the tissue, which is a characteristic reaction to the picric acid. So make your pick which result you prefer but, please, do not call Bouin to a fixative without picric acid!
René J.

--- On Wed, 9/14/11, Tyrone Genade <tgenade <@t> gmail.com> wrote:


From: Tyrone Genade <tgenade <@t> gmail.com>
Subject: [Histonet] Bouin's without the picric acid?
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 7:52 AM


Hello,

I have been using Bouin's fixative on my fish specimens. I had simply
been killing the fish, slitting them down their belly and letting them
lie in Bouin's overnight. This worked well to soften the tissue and in
particular the brain case (I'm interested in the brain but the
dissection is delicate and I'm clumsy). After trying some silver
staining the results were not very good. I have since learned that
picric acid interferes with silver staining (and fluorescent staining
like FluoroJade-B) so no more picric acid for me.

My question is this: can I use Buoin's without picric acid? The
solution is 75 mL saturated picric acid, 25 mL 40% formaldehyde and 5
mL glacial acetic acid to make 100 mL.  If I simply left out the
picric acid, replacing it with distilled water, would this cause
trouble? I am reluctant to switch to PFA as this can destroy certain
antibody epitopes whereas the Bouin's doesn't (so I'm told but I was
also told that Buoin's won't cause trouble at all...).

My other idea was to use PFA and then decalcify in dilute acetic or formic acid.

Any suggestions or advice?

Thanks
-- 
Tyrone Genade
http://tgenade.freeshell.org
email: tgenade <@t> gmail.com
tel: +27-84-632-1925 (c)
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