Application of acrylamide as an embedding medium in studies of lectin and antibody binding in the vertebrate retina

Abstract

The use of acrylamide as an embedding medium for vertebrate retinal tissue and its applicability to lectin and antibody-based cytochemical studies is described. The acrylamide technique has numerous advantages over those using fresh-frozen or paraffin embedded material. The morphological integrity of retinal tissue prepared in acrylamide is equivalent to that obtainable with paraffin and superior to that of fresh-frozen material [mice, rats, rabbits, monkeys and chickens]. This technique alleviates problems often encountered with the thermal and chemical treatments required in the paraffin method. The acrylamide technique allows the localization of lectin and antibody-binding sites essentially unaltered by the fixation and embedding protocol, as in frozen sections, while maintaining tissue morphology similar to that of paraffin-embedded tissue. This approach may be useful in research employing lectin, antibody or other cytochemical approaches to the study of cellular structure and function.