A Novel Method for Preparing Histology Slides Without a Microtome

Summary Astudywasundertakentodetermineifitmightbepossibletopreparetissuesectionsonslideswithouttheuseofparaffinembedding, microtome sectioning, or cryostat sectioningwhichinvolveequipmentandtrainingnotalwaysavailabletoscholarsorprofessionalswishingtoexaminetissuemicro-scopically.Afterevaluatingmanydifferentreagents,cuttinginstruments and solid supports, we developed a methodinvolvingapplicationofsupergluetoaslide,adheringasectionoftissuetoit,cuttingthetissuewithadisposablemicrotomeblade,stainingthetissueandremovingthesuper-gluewithacommerciallyavailableproduct.Thesectionsaresimilartothosesectionedonamicrotome,butdonotatthistimeequaltheirquality.However,histoarchitectureispre-servedandindividualcellmorphologyisusuallygood.Weconcludethatthisisaviablemethodforpreparinghistologysectionswithouttheuseofamicrotomeorcryostat,somethinglong thought impossible. We have dubbed the method‘RAMP’(RapidAdhesive-MediatedProcedure). Introduction Paraffinembeddingandmicrotomesectioningoftissuesisalengthyprocessinvolvingexpensiveequipmentandrequiringspecializedtraining(LillieandFullmer,1976;SheehanandHrapchak,1980).Automatedtissuechangersareroutinelyusedtocarryoutdehydration,clearingandparaffinembed-ding,andthetimerequiredisoftenover12h.Amicrotomeisthenusedtomaketissuesections4–10lmthick,whichareadhered to glass slides. The other approach – cryostatsectioning–isconsiderablyfasterbutalsorequiresexpensiveequipmentandtrainedpersonnel.Therearetimeswhenitwouldbeusefultopreparehistologyslides,buttheexpenseandtimeinvolvedwiththesetraditionalmethodscannotbejustified.Thisreportdetailsthedevelop-mentofanovel,simple,rapidandinexpensivemethodforhistologyslidepreparationwithoutparaffinembeddingandmicrotomesectioning.