Staining Methods for Normal and Regenerative Myelin in the Nervous System.
Histochemical techniques enable the specific identification of myelin by light microscopy. Here we describe three histochemical methods for the staining of myelin suitable for formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded materials. The first method is conventional luxol fast blue (LFB) method which stains myelin in blue and Nissl bodies and mast cells in purple. The second method is a LBF-based method called MCOLL, which specifically stains the myelin as well the collagen fibers and cells, giving an integrated overview of the histology and myelin content of the tissue. Finally, we describe the osmium tetroxide method, which consist in the osmication of previously fixed tissues. Osmication is performed prior the embedding of tissues in paraffin giving a permanent positive reaction for myelin as well as other lipids present in the tissue.
Tissue Engineering Group, Department of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Avenida de la investigación n° 11, Torre A, 5ª planta, 18016, Granada, Spain. vcarriel@ugr.es.|Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria Ibs, Granada, Spain. vcarriel@ugr.es.
Víctor
V
Carriel
Tissue Engineering Group, Department of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Avenida de la investigación n° 11, Torre A, 5ª planta, 18016, Granada, Spain.|Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria Ibs, Granada, Spain.
Antonio
A
Campos
Tissue Engineering Group, Department of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Avenida de la investigación n° 11, Torre A, 5ª planta, 18016, Granada, Spain.|Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria Ibs, Granada, Spain.
Miguel
M
Alaminos
Dipartimento di Scienze Cliniche e Biologiche, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy.
Stefania
S
Raimondo
Dipartimento di Scienze Cliniche e Biologiche, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy.
Stefano
S
Geuna
D000818:Animals; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique; D006651:Histocytochemistry / Q000379:methods*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods; D009186:Myelin Sheath / Q000378:metabolism*; D009417:Nerve Tissue / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D013194:Staining and Labeling / Q000379:methods; D016707:Tissue Fixation
Collagen staining; Luxol fast blue; MCOLL method; Myelin sheath; Osmium tetroxide method; Paraffin embedding; Picrosirius staining