Histology Methods Flashcards
What is the study of cytology?
Histology?
Organology?
Cytology – study of the cell
Histology – study of body tissues (4 primary tissues)
Organology – study of body organs (organs composed of 4 primary tissues)
What are the 4 primary body tissues studied in histology?
- Epithelium
- Connective tissue
a. Connective tissue proper
b. Blood and blood development
c. Cartilage and bone (both specialized connective tissues)
- Nerve tissue – composes both the peripheral and central nervous system
- Muscle tissue – consists of smooth, cardiac and skeletal muscle
What is the light (bright field) microscope used for?
– routine laboratory microscope used for studying tissue sections
What is a transmission electron microscope used for?
Transmission electron microscope (TEM) – used to study cytology or internal structures of cells; study of electron micrographs
What are scanning electron microscopes used for?
Scanning electron microscope (SEM) –used to study the surface features of cells and tissues; obtain a 3-dimensional picture of the tissue
What does a polarizing microscope allow one to do?
Polarizing microscope – permits one to determine whether biological materials have different refractive indices along different optical axes
What are phase microscopes used to study?
Phase microscope – used to study living tissue; works on principal of different refractive indices of cellular and sub-cellular components
What modification on the phase microscope allows for study of living tissue?
Interference micropscopy
What does fluorescence microscopy rely on?
uses UV light as the light source; used to examine the presence of fluorescent material in tissue sections
How does a confocal scanning microscope work?
Confocal scanning microscope – uses a laser energy beam; used to optically section a cell and with the appropriate computer equipment can reconstruct a 3-D image of the cell
In general, what are the 6 steps for preparing tissues?
- Fixation: preserve tissue morphology and chemical composition by rendering tissue insoluble by precipitating proteins and carbohydrates to stablize the structure
- Dehydration: uses alcohol to remove water from tissues so that tissue is miscible
- Clearing: replace alcohl with an agent miscible with paraffin (like toluene, xyelen or benzene)
- Infiltration and embedding: replace clearing agent with embedding material like paraffin, methacrylate, celloidin or gelatin
- Sectioning: produce thin sections throguh which light will pass using a microtome
- Staining: to impart color to a tissue
Besides fixation, how could one prepare a tissue?
What ttwo instances are these used for?
Use frozen sections!
Use for surgical boiopsies or for research studies looking at the localization of enzymes
- surgeon takes tissue sample for pathologist or tech
- Specimen is frozen and cut on freezing microtome
- Section is stained and examined
What are artifacts?
refers to any features evident in tissue sections that are a result of imperfect technique.
What are 6 causes of artifacts?
- Post-mortem degeneration – due to lysosomal digestion of the cells.
- Shrinkage – due frequently to reagents used in preparing paraffin sections, resulting in empty to clear spaces which during life were occupied by tissue components.
- Precipitates – occurs when formalin is not properly buffered.
- Wrinkles and folds – due to defect in paraffin section.
- Nick in the microtome knife – due to defect in knife, resulting in the tearing or scraping of the tissue when the section is cut.
- Mishandling of the tissue – frequently due to pinching of the tissue when removing tissue from the body.
Besides artifacts, what could lead to misinterpretation of a tissue section?
damage to the section
Why is staining necessary?
Living cells possess very little color, so sections of tissue are virtually colorless. This means we have to stain it if we want to see anything. Unfortunately the chemical basis of staining is poorly understood - we hae learned from trial and error through the years
What do acid and base stains do?
Basic stains stain cations (+)
Acid stains stain anions (-)
Note that this does NOT conform to the general understanding of an acid and a base.
What is a chromophore?
A chromophore is the atomic groups upon which color of a stain depends
What color is hematoxylin stain?
What does it stain?
Hematoxylin stain is blue to purple.
The stain has th chromophore associated with the basic radical, which is a cation, thus this is a BASIC stain. It will stain anything with a negative charge - a basophilic substance.
It will stain basophilic substances such as the nucleus, DNA, chromosome, heterochromatin, RNA nucleolus and cytoplasmic ribosomes (these all have POa 3-)
What color is the eosin stain?
WHat does it stain?
Eosin is red to pink
The dye has the chromophore assoicated with the acid radical - an anion, thus it’s an acid or anionic stain.
It will stain basic radicle - anything with a positive charge.
As such, it will bind acidophili substances like proteins (that have large numbers of basic groups assoicated with the side chains)
What will trichrome stain?
connective tissue, especially collagen
examples include Masson’s and Mallory’s stain
What will elastic stains stain?
Elastic fibers or elastic tissue in connective tissue
Examples include aldehyde fuschin, orcein, resorcin-fuchsin