Index >> Microscopy Methods in Microbiology >>Embedding and Sectioning of Material

Process the material for block making by transferring it with heated needle to a melted paraffin. Cool the paraffin rapidly to prevent crystallization. Trim the hard block suitably and mount on the microtome.Animal tissues dehydrated as discussed above may be processed as follows. Transfer the tissue from chloroform to a mixture of chloroform and melted paraffin wax (1:1) for one hour in the paraffin oven. Place the material in pure melted paraffin, kept at 55°C, for 2 hours in vacuum embedding oven and then cool rapidly. Paraffin block is cut out and mounted on the microtome.

Cut the sections using microtome. The rate at which the sections are cut influence their quality. Frozen material is cut better with slow speed. Successive sections adhere edge to edge to form a ribbon.

This contains an alpha emitting strip which ionizes the air and discharges the static electricity. Recently, other devices are also recommended by Scolding (11) and Henry (12).

A suitable length of ribbon is fixed to a  slide with Haupt’s adhesive (S17). Flood the slide with formalin and heat it, as a result ribbon expands and sections become flattened. Special attention s to be paid in heating to prevent disintegration of sections due to higher temperature or crumbling due to the lower temperature than required.

For further details, reference may be mad to work on histology and plant microtechniques.