Logically the ingredient in the nail polish that could harm lens would be
the solvent. Once the prep is hardened and the solvent is gone - no harm
should be done...

Grazyna Tokarczyk
Dept. Psychology and Neuroscience,
Dalhousie Univ,
Halifax, Canada

On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, Irina Solovei wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Coming back to the discussion about sealing of coverslips I would like to
> mention two points.
>
> (1) We use for our slides not a nail polish but other cosmetic stuff, so
> called "base coat". It hardens quicker then a nail polish, it is
> colourless, and does not course bleaching of GFP in fixed cells - at least
> it is not a problem to scan them with CLSM.
>
> (2) In connection to the nail polish sealing, I recall my private
> discussions with microscopists about harmful effect of nailpolish on
> objective lenses. Do we really risk our very expensive lenses using sealed
> preps? Does anybody can comment on it?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Irina
>
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