It is a very common procedure to transcardially perfuse mice and rats with 4% PFA, and then dissect out the tissues. Formaldehyde (and PFA) is a known carcinogen, and all the safety material says to work inside a fume hood. I make my PFA in the hood, and I perfuse in a hood, but come time to take out some tissues, such as spinal cord or DRG, I really need the assistance of a dissecting scope. Trying to have the scope in a hood, and dissect at the same time is cumbersome. So I resort to dissecting out on the bench, as does pretty much everyone else I've spoken to. Is there no better solution?
Hi Alexander
We post fix for 24 to 48 hours in PFA and then change the solution to phosphate buffered saline so that we can work on the bench with it in a few days with minimal exposure to PFA. You still need gloves of course and a mask is a good idea to minimise exposure to the odour. You can also do your work outside a fumed but near to a scavenger system, some kind of low flow rats vacuum pump that removes any odours and deposits them outside the room. They say that any obvious exposure to PFA fumes is too much exposure!
I hope this helps, Good luck.
John Reynolds
ıf you want another method to all organs sections on a paper. A Japanese technique I suppose you can freeze all of the body of a mouse within liquid nitrogen tank. And you can take sections all of the body by pathologists' microtome on a paper.
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