Carbodiimide and formalin as fixatives for the TP-levanol fast cyanine 5RN-method for staining myosin-like proteins in rat tissues.

Abstract

Apart from the applicability of the tannic acid-phosphomolybdic acid-Levanol-Fast Cyanine 5RN method for the identification of muscle myosins in Carnoy-fixed tissues, this technique can also be applied on tissue sections fixed with formalin or carbodiimide. The use of carbodiimide as a fixative offers, in general, a superior staining of the tissues with safranine and Levanol. Using a slightly modified procedure, reduction of staining time in Levanol, moreover, allows a differentiation between cells containing different amounts of myosin. This is illustrated by means of a number of rat tissues.