Lloyd Donaldson wrote:
>
> Tristan
>
> Its worth pointing out that physiological saline may be fine for animal tissue
> but will be quite toxic to plant material. Its also likely that agarose will be
> too soft to section a leaf. One trick to get thinner sections is to cut the
> material in a wedge shape so you get a really thin area at the end of the
> section. You can also try hand sectioning with the leaf between two pieces of
> pith (pith is available from your local microscopy consumables supplier - for
> cleaning diamond knives). Cryo-sectioning might work but of course you need to
> be able to access suitable equipment.
>
> Good Luck
>
> Lloyd Donaldson
> Forest Research, Rotorua, New Zealand
>
> > Tristan,
> >         If you section something, embedded or not, you will kill it. You
> > can freeze the tissue and section it, if your goal is to retain the ability
> > to stain with immunocytochemical probes. Why not try confocal fluorescence
> > or digital image sectioning.
> > good luck!
> >
> > Steve Limbach
> >
>
> To give a suggestion to Tristans original question. You may try to embed
> your tissue in 5% agarose in physiolgcal saline and make vibratome cuts
> in the same saline immediatly after embedding. Keep the tissue in your
> saline during the whole process and use water immersion lenses for
> examination (oil immersion lenses won't match the refractive index of
> your tissue and mounting medium).
>
> Sincerely
> Christian
>
> --
> Christian Lohr, Ph.D.
> ARL Division of Neurobiology
> University of Arizona
> PO Box 210077
> Tucson, AZ 85721-0077
> Phone: (520) 621-6671
> FAX: (520) 621-8282
> [log in to unmask]

We have  pre-owned, reconditioned Vibratomes and other equipment
available.
Regards,
Markus F. Meyenhofer
Microscopy Labs
Box 338
Red Bank, NJ 07701
732 747 6228
fax 732 758 9142