some advice needed, i'm cutting all my frozen muscle samples and need to know whether to fix them in alcohol then freeze at -80 or just freeze them unfixed.....:-)

Is your tissue fixed in anything like formalin before embedding it in a block for sectioning?

they are snap frozen in OCT and isopentane. wrapped in foil then kept at -80 until needed. i'm just not sure after cutting sections onto slides whether to fix in acetone before storing or just air dry then freeze

tasty!

My tissue is formalin fixed but I section, air dry then freeze and then when I want to stain the tissue I fix the slides in acetone after they've thawed.

Hi, I'm no expert by any means but have worked in diagnostic IHC for a year during my degree. Visit www.ibms.org for some preprepared SOP's

I tended to freeze fresh, unfixed sections using isopentane cooled with liquid nitrogen until it became slush like. Providing you have a good cryostat, there is no problem in sectioning fresh frozen specimens. Just remember to ensure that they are kept dry i.e. not in saline when they are first removed from the patient (a moist gauze is suitable)if you intend doing any subsequent enzyme studies etc. Hope this helps!

really depends on what you are gonna use your samples for, personally i'd dehydrate prior to freezing as any water is gonna rip the cells apart when ice crystals form. but then again just depends what you're lookinbg at, gross structure or cellular processes etc

immunohistochemistry looking at immune cells