Hello,

I think any list of these reagents has only limited use.
The best is to check your products by putting them in a fluorimeter or
more simple to expose them to the light of a fluorescence exciatation
light source. If you see the beam of light passing through the bottle
you are shure the fluorescence is high.
A lot of products show fluorescence if excited in this way. You can
exclude diffraction by dust by using some filters. Orange or green
filters used for photography are appropriate. It can be stated in this
way that even immersion oil is sometimes fluorescent. We found
that according to this
criterion only Cargille immersion oil with grade: very very low
fluorescence is negative.
An inspection of oils at regular intervals is advisable because as oil
is used by a lot of less carefull users it can easily be contamminated
with a fluorescent dye. Plastic bottles are some times the cause of
fluorescent contaminants and need to be used with care. On the other hand,
a lot of dyes used in textile are also fluorescent so dust oftextile can
contaminate your solvents. Further more plant products like lignin,
chlorophyl or caroteens very frequently present in pollen grains also show
fluorescence. Just try to look with your microscope to unstained or
unprocessed tissue and you will seen nice fluorescent objects. Remenber
the blacklight fluorescence of the disco for example.
 If you use gold label grades you can escape a lot
of problems, except financial ones. But test for quality is fairly easy.

Greetings,

Patrick

On Wed, 28 Oct
1998, Sands, Steven B wrote:

> Does anyone have, or know of, a public list (database) of reagents which
> should not be used during imaging expts. due to their spectroscopic
> properties (ie, reagents which have sig. absorbtion/fluorescence at commonly
> used wavelengths)?
>
> Steven B. Sands
> Pfizer Central Research
> [log in to unmask]
>

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