Fixation of vervet monkey oral mucosa for ultrastructural investigation--TEM

A method for preparing and staining histological sections containing titanium implants for light microscopy

An improved method for preparing and staining ground tissue-implant sections for light microscopy is presented. Undecalcified tissue blocks with titanium implants were dehydrated in an ascending series of ethanol and stained in toto with basic fuchsin. Specimens were infiltrated and embedded in methyl methacrylate and sections were prepared using a cutting-grinding-system. The polished surface was counterstained with light green or anilin blue. Light polymerizing resin was used as slide mounting medium and for mounting the coverglass. The sections obtained were 10-15 microns thick with tissue architecture which clearly differentiated structures at the tissue-implant interface. The method was very useful for computer assisted morphometric analysis.

Primary fixation of vervet monkey oral epithelium for ultrastructural investigation--SEM

Vervet monkey attached gingiva and alveolar mucosa was used to investigate the effect of primary fixative composition and osmolarity on the scanning electron microscope appearance and epithelial cell surface feature density. Primary fixation was obtained using 12 different fixatives with osmolarities varying between 320-2010mOsm followed by further standard SEM processing procedures. All primary fixatives investigated produced acceptably fixed oral epithelium for SEM study, showing all the morphologic features characteristic of either keratinized or non-keratinized oral tissue. Point counting revealed that the density of microvilli of attached gingiva epithelial cells when fixed at 2010mOsm was 72 +/- 8% of the cell surface area. This decreased to 40 +/- 5% when fixed at 320mOsm. Similarly the microplication density of the alveolar mucosa epithelial cells decreased from 70 +/- 5% at 2010mOsm to 43 +/- 7% at 320mOsm. Both these differences proved to be highly significant.