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Yes, you do get partial permeabilisation with para formaldehyde.
You can stain unfixed non permeabilised cells to look at membrane proteins. 

Michelle

On 21 Aug 2012, at 20:38, "Trop, Stefanie A." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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> Dear list,
> 
> Has anyone had experience with paraformaldehyde permeabilizing mammalian cells? One of my labmates fixed cells grown on coverslips with a fresh aliquot of 4% paraformaldehyde that we made from powder and had stored at -20C, and had strong staining with antibodies that I would not expect to be present on the membrane, specifically EEA1 and ubiquitin-conjugated proteins. He did not add any alcohols nor detergents during any subsequent staining steps. Thanks for any assistance you can offer!
> 
> Yours,
> Stefanie Trop
> 
> _____________________________________________
> Stefanie Trop, PhD Candidate
> Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
> Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
> Laboratory of Jelena Levitskaya
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