General Considerations

Abstract

The procedures required to maximise the immunolabelling of tissue sections can be placed in to two groups, those which prepare the sections for staining, collectively called the section pretreatment, and the staining procedures themselves. The requirement for section pretreatment depends on the extent of fixation and the type of resin, with epoxy resin sections of post-osmicated tissue needing the most attention, and acrylic resin sections of aldehyde fixed tissue the least. Immunolabelling levels will be limited by the availability of antigen in the section but can be optimised. Much of this optimisation is empirical but some consideration of the factors involved can help to reduce the number of experiments.