I've seen various protocols suggesting either drying samples on a heat-block, dehydrating through an increasing EtOH concentration gradient or just air-drying before mounting or storage. What are the advantages/disadvantages of each? What method would best preserve the DNA for laser microdissection?
Hi Adam, personally I would avoid heating tissues.
Heating tissues will accelerate the Maillard reaction between proteins and glucose with subsequent advanced glycation end products (AGE), which can be crosslinked to everything including DNA.
Hi Mattew Ibbs,
I am primarily questioning what the pros/cons are of air drying, alcohol-mediated dehydration and heat-block mediated drying done just before mounting for FFPE IHC or storage for frozen. Why is one of these methods done over the other? Does one preserve morphology better? Does one preserve DNA integrity better than the other? For instance, a heat-block dehydration is a lot easier/quicker than an increasing EtOH gradient, so why use the EtOH gradient? Why air dry?
For DNA quality I would use frozen, but again, is EtOH dehydration>air dry>heat block dry for this purpose?
I hope that clears things up.
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