I am having troubles cutting paraffine embedded mouse bones on a microtome. Fixation and embedding can't completely remove calcium, and I end up with thorn slices all the time. Even additional decalcification and reembedding couldn't help. Any ideas on what can I do to get those bones sliced?
Thank you
Brent E Gowen
Decalcified bone is fairly hard while paraffin is a soft embedding medium. You need to better match the hardness of the material you are embedding with the embedding medium. Some plastics, such as JB4, are good alternatives to paraffin for light microscopy applications as they polymerize to a much higher hardness than paraffin.
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Jean-Martin Lapointe
You must decalcify the tissue prior to processing, if you are embedding in paraffin.
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