Gelling the Archived or Freshly Prepared Clinical Tissue Slides

Begin by taking the prepared archived, fresh tissue, or paraformaldehyde-fixed mouse brain tissue slides. Cut thin pieces of cover glass with a diamond-tipped pen to make spacers. Then, secure them to the slide with small amounts of water, PBS, or superglue.

Gently place the spacers on either side of the tissue. Prepare the final gelling solution by combining the reagents immediately before use. Place the slide in a Petri dish after removing the excess solution from the tissue section.

Add the freshly-prepared cold gelling solution to the sample and incubate the mixture on the tissue for 30 minutes at four degrees Celsius to allow diffusion into the tissue. Carefully place a second uncoated glass slide over the tissue and gel solution, avoiding air bubbles. Allow the samples to polymerize by incubating overnight at 37 degrees Celsius in a humidified environment.