Hello,

I used serum from mice, which I prepared from animals that were euthanized for experimental purposes. I did not heat it before the use in immunohistochemistry. I've made aliquots which were frozen at -20° C until use.

Sterilizing is surely not a good idea because all the proteins in the serum will be denaturated! You can instead use sterile-filters.

KInd regrads

Stefan

Hi Stefan,

Thank so much for your answer and sharing your experience. I will avoid heating it.

Ahmed

Hi, I never used the animal serum for IHC slices blocking. I have used albumin or another protein solution to this. But I think that filtering the serum should be wiser to prevent protein inactivation of serum. Good luck

Hi Karla,

Thank for your answer. I have also used BSA 3-5% for blocking. I cut this to half for antibody dilution. I have good results with this method, but there is some background. Many people think that serum may act in a better way than BSA. That's why I am trying to go for it.

Best regards

Hy again,

as a further tip you should use the serum from the same species as your secondary antibody is derived from.

KInd regards

Stefan