Tissue Preparation

Tissue preparation is one of the critical factors that determine the success of an in situ hybridization experiment. A typical histological specimen is a very thin slice of tissue, mounted on a glass microscope slide and colored with intense stains. There are four steps in standard tissue preparation: fixation, embedding, sectioning (slicing), staining. The most common mode of routine tissue preparation involves fixation with buffered formaldehyde, embedding in paraffin, sectioning into slices about 5 micrometers in thickness, and staining with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E).