fixation of flatworms for confocal microscopy

Posted by Xinyu Zhao-2 on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/fixation-of-flatworms-for-confocal-microscopy-tp722505.html

Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Hi, everybody,

We have a user trying to do confocal microscopy on flatworms, ( parasitic blood flukes with a size of 1mm x 1cm,  Schistosoma mansoni, ).  The goal sounds easy:  imaging the nucleus of the worms.  And I thought the common procedures for immunotaining tissues would apply, i.e.,  PFA fixation followed by Triton 100x permeablization before the staining.

However, in the handful literatures available, people seemed to always use something else, such as an alcohol-formalin-glacial acetic acid solution.

Can anybody explain why ?  And has anybody tried just PFA and Triton 100X on these creatures?
 
Your input will be very much appreciated.



Xinyu Zhao (Jasmine)
Biomedical Imaging Core Lab
Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine
School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
Tel:  [phone]