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Effects of short and long-term alcohol-based fixation on Sprague-Dawley rat tissue morphology, protein and nucleic acid preservation
- Source :
- Acta Histochemica. 121:750-760
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Safety concerns on the toxic and carcinogenic effects of formalin exposure have drawn increasing attention to the search for alternative low risk fixatives for processing tissue specimens in laboratories worldwide. Alcohol-based fixatives are considered some of the most promising alternatives. We evaluated the performance of alcohol-fixed paraffin-embedded (AFPE) samples from Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats analyzing tissue morphology, protein and nucleic acid preservation after short and extremely long fixation times (up to 7 years), using formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples as a comparator fixative. Following short and long-term alcohol fixation, tissue morphology and cellular details in tissues, evaluated by scoring stained sections (Hematoxylin-Eosin and Mallory’s trichrome), were optimally preserved if compared to formalin fixation. Immunoreactivity of proteins (Ki67, CD3, PAX5, CD68), evaluated by immunohistochemistry, showed satisfactory results when the fixation period did not exceed 1 year. Finally, we confirm the superiority of alcohol fixation compared to formalin, in terms of quantity of nucleic acid extracted from paraffin blocks, even after an extremely long time of alcohol fixation. Our results confirm that alcohol fixation is a suitable and safe alternative to formalin for pathological evaluations. There is a need for standardization of formalin-free methods and harmonization of diagnosis in pathology department worldwide.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
Pathology
medicine.medical_specialty
Tissue Fixation
Histology
Alcohol
Article
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Fixatives
03 medical and health sciences
chemistry.chemical_compound
0302 clinical medicine
Trichrome
Animals
Medicine
Fixative
Fixation (histology)
Ethanol
business.industry
Cell Biology
General Medicine
Tissue morphology
Immunohistochemistry
Rats
Sprague dawley
030104 developmental biology
chemistry
Organ Specificity
030220 oncology & carcinogenesis
Nucleic acid
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00651281
- Volume :
- 121
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Acta Histochemica
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e0ce6478c53afb5b512552c1c7062cf2