Microwave‐enhanced fixation of rabbit articular cartilage

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Cartilage, being highly aqueous, is difficult to preserve for electron microscopy without artefacts. Microwave‐enhanced fixation is suggested as a standard method for block samples of this material, with dimensions of up to 12 × 7 × 3 mm. Cartilage samples from the tibial plateau of adult rabbits were fixed by conventional, cryo‐ or microwave‐enhanced fixation. Constant or cyclical microwave irradiation of samples, immersed in fixatives, was carried out to varying final solution temperatures. Microwave‐enhanced fixation and staining is shown to be both rapid and reproducible, giving fine structural preservation. Below 323 K microwave fixation always gave excellent preservation of the fine structure within seconds. At higher temperatures thermal artefacts were introduced. In this study the microwave‐enhanced fixation is equal in quality to the best conventional immersion fixation and is nearly as fast as cryo‐preservation. It provides a standardized, reproducible fixation for morphological studies on cartilage with good process control.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: