Recently, when conducting lipid droplet-related histological research, I encountered a technical confusion:

We plan to use BODIPY 493/503 (MCE, Cat.NO.: HY-W090090) to stain tissue samples for lipid droplets, but the samples need to be embedded in paraffin and sectioned. It is known that this dye is a fat-soluble fluorescent probe and is usually used for lipid labeling in living cells or frozen sections.

However, the steps involved in the paraffin section process, such as ethanol dehydration and xylene clearing, may cause lipid dissolution or displacement.

I would like to ask:

• Have teachers/colleagues tried to apply BODIPY 493/503 to paraffin sections? What is the actual staining effect?
• If it is feasible, is special pre-treatment required (such as lipid fixation optimization, antigen repair adjustment, etc.)?
• If not applicable, can you recommend a lipid droplet staining scheme suitable for paraffin sections (such as other fluorescent dyes or histochemical methods)?

We have currently observed weak staining signals in our preliminary experiments, and we are not sure whether this is due to insufficient lipid preservation.

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