Gelatin embedding of mouse brain for vibratome sections

[J. A. Kiernan]

In article <5qo90g$bfb at lace.colorado.edu> "Edoardo \"Dado\" Marcora" <marcora at colorado.edu> writes:

>I would be pleased if someone could let me know which concentration of
>gelatin to use in order to embed mouse brains (fixed). I will make vibratome
>sections out of them.

   You probably don't need to embed in gelatin, but if you
   want to, soak the fixed specimen in about 25 ml of 5%
   gelatin in a 50 ml beaker at 37øC overnight. Put in
   fridge (4øC) until set (2 hours), then cut out a block
   and immerse it in any formaldehyde fixative, for 24 hours.
   Finally, wash in running water for a few hours to get
   rid of excess formaldehyde. The fixation after embedding
   is to make the gelatin insoluble in water.

                                     John A. Kiernan
                                     Department of Anatomy
                                     Univ. of Western Ontario
                                     LONDON, Canada  N6A 5C1