Holding Plastic Embedded Specimens During Dissection: Two Improvements

Abstract

Sectioning of tissue specimens of aligned cells (e.g., muscle, cochlea, retina) for micrographs, often requires the capsule containing the tissue to be positioned at a precise angle during sectioning. The correct angle can be set by trial and error, but the process can be shortened if the gross anatomy of the cell system is used as a guide to orient the embedded sections as closely as possible in the optimal plane. Thick sections are then cut in this plane with a razor blade, and these sections are re-embedded in preparation for thin sectioning. This technique eliminates the large angles of the capsule in the microtome which occur when the gross tissue is poorly aligned in the first embedding.