Postembedding Decalcification of Mineralized Tissue Sections Preserves the Integrity of Implanted Biomaterials and Minimizes Number of Experimental Animals

Figure 3

Postembedding decalcification of rat femur preserves antigen specificity in bone tissue. (a–c) Preembedding decalcified bone samples embedded in paraffin show positive ColI signaling in bone matrix. (d–f) PMMA undecalcified section shows the specificity of ColI immunostaining. (g–i) Postembedding decalcification shows no discrepancies in signal intensity and localization. Images (a), (d), and (g) were acquired by 5x magnification objective; then individual tiles were stitched together by Leica application suite (LASX) software. Images (b), (e), and (h) were acquired by 5x magnification objective. Images (c), (f), and (i) were acquired by 10x magnification objective.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

(g)

(h)

(i)