The Utilization of Bovine Serum Albumin in the Preparation of Unicellular Organisms for Cytological Studies
1989 年 54 巻 2 号 p. 325-333
詳細
1989 年 54 巻 2 号 p. 325-333
Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is used as an embedding medium to produce pellets of unicellular organisms that can be handled as single blocks during preparation for cytological studies. The microorganisms are suspended in a solution of BSA, concentrated by gentle centrifugation and the BSA pellet gelled with glutaraldehyde. Gelling occurs at room temperature and its consistency can be controlled by changing the concentration or the time of exposure to glutaraldehyde. The part of the gelled block containing cellular material is then sliced into smaller portions that can be subjected to different cytological treatments. These make the correlation of data from different cytological observations more reproducible and less time consuming since it avoids duplication of preparative steps. BSA embedding also minimizes compression and clumping of cellular samples; hence, it minimizes artifacts in the preservation of cellular structure. The technique can be used to handle on a routine basis large number of specimens of microorganims for cytological observations.
