Application of acrylamide as an embedding medium in studies of lectin and antibody binding in the vertebrate retina

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Abstract
The use of acrylamide as an embedding medium for vertebrate retinal tissue and its applicability to lectin and antibody-based cytochemical studies is described. The acrylamide technique has numerous advantages over those using fresh-frozen or paraffin embedded material. The morphological integrity of retinal tissue prepared in acrylamide is equivalent to that obtainable with paraffin and superior to that of fresh-frozen material [mice, rats, rabbits, monkeys and chickens]. This technique alleviates problems often encountered with the thermal and chemical treatments required in the paraffin method. The acrylamide technique allows the localization of lectin and antibody-binding sites essentially unaltered by the fixation and embedding protocol, as in frozen sections, while maintaining tissue morphology similar to that of paraffin-embedded tissue. This approach may be useful in research employing lectin, antibody or other cytochemical approaches to the study of cellular structure and function.