[Histonet] paraffin sectioning-dry tissue?

[Emily Brown]

Hello all!

I just started sectioning mouse liver in paraffin and the tissue is very
dry.  I know it's not supposed to have water due to the processing, but the
weird thing is that one tech's solution is to put a wet kimwipe on the
block for a while.
It seems to me that there is a larger processing issue if this is
happening, am I correct? And why add water when you've already dehydrated
it?
Unfortunately, we do not have the set up to embed them ourselves, so we
have to send them to a histology lab.  They were sectioning for us, but
they are backlogged, so my boss wants me to do it.  Therefore, I can't tell
you how they were processed, but I think usually the histology lab manages
to get good sections.
Is putting a wet kimwipe (using distilled water) the best way to get rid of
chatter that's only in the tissue? The surrounding paraffin sections
excellent.
This may have been answered already, but a very quick google search didn't
help.  My googlefu is probably erratic as it's still early.

Emily


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