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[Damian_R]

Hi all,

I've got a set of mouse brains that were fixed with PFA through cardiac perfusion. We fixed them in 4% PFA overnight, then 15% sucrose ON, then 30% sucrose ON. Subsequently they were frozen down with powdered dry ice and stored at -80C until cutting.
Cutting was performed on a Leica Cryostat (OT-25C, CT-25C) and mounted on superfrost plus slides with PBS. One brain took about 2 hours and was afterwards air dried at room temperature for half an hour.
Slides were then stored at -80C.

Here's where the problem started:
I took the slides out of the slide box and let them air dry. After a couple of minutes they are all cracked and detach from the slides. I had seperate slides for forebrain and cerebellum. The cerebellum sections are fine, it's just the forebrain which is useless.

I've used that very same protocol many times before on neonatal rat tissue and it worked just fine. I almost never had any significant freezing artifacts or tissue detaching from slides.
It's my second try with that mouse tissue and both times there was the same problem. I thought that there must have been another freeze thaw cycle when someone else transferred my slide boxes. This time I'm quite sure that this didnt happen.

Please help. I'vent found anything on the topic and would very much appreciate advice


thanks,
Damian