OK, since nobody answered yet, here are my two cents. I worked with lungs just once, and standard TEM protocol with 2.5% glut worked fine.

Hi Kathleen,

I previously used a mixture of 1.5% paraformaldehyde and 1.5% glutaraldehyde in 0.1 M cacodylate buffer at 4°C (pH 7.3). Following filling the airways by instillation of the fixative solution via the trachea into the lungs, I would clamp the trachea and submerge the lungs in the same fixation solution for 24 h (at 4°C).

Here is a couple of references for your review:

1. Fehrenbach H, Wahlers T, Ochs M, Brasch F, Schmiedl A, Hirt SW, Haverich A, Richter J. Ultrastructural pathology of the alveolar type II pneumocytes of human donor lungs. Electron microscopy, stereology, and microanalysis. Virchows Arch 432: 229–239, 1998. doi:10.1007/s004280050160

2. Scott Milos*, Reza Khazaee*, Lynda A. McCaig, Karen Nygard, Richard B. Gardiner, Yi Y. Zuo, Cory Yamashita, Ruud Veldhuizen. Impact of ventilation-induced lung injury on the structure and function of lamellar bodies. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 313:L524–L533

I fix lung tissues with 2% glutaraldehyde. Also I use cacodylate buffer with 0.15M NaCl as rinse buffer and diluting buffer. This is used for SEM but I suppose the same could be true for TEM also. Hope this helps!

Dear Kathleen,

I can recommend 1.5% paraformaldehyde and 1.5% glutaraldehyde in 0.15 M HEPES buffer at a pressure of 20 cmH2O for fixing the lung tissue. You can find a more detailed protocol in the methods section of this publication - Article Aging exacerbates acute lung injury induced changes of the a...

Hope this will be helpful.

Best

Shambhabi