Specimen Nr. 06

Specimen:

Brain, frontal slice (Rat)

Staining:

Immunecytochemical staining with anti-bodies against glia fibrillar acidic protein (GFAP), hemalaun

Magnification:

200x

Important structures :

1.Astrocyte
2.Neuronal perikaryon
Das Präparat zeigt zahlreiche Astrozyten, deren Zellkörper und Fortsätze dunkelbraun angefärbt sind. Die feineren astrozytären Fortsätze sind allerdings nicht zu erkennen, da sie nur wenige Filamente enthalten. Beachte, daß die Astrozyten, soweit angeschnitten, einen durch Hämalaun blaugefärbten Zellkern enthalten. Im übrigen gibt es zahlreiche blaugefärbte Zellkerne, deren Zytoplasma mangels Anfärbung nicht zu erkennen ist. Diese sind entweder Neuronen oder Oligodendrozyten zuzuordnen.

Legende:

Astrocyte
Neuronal perikaryon

Immunohistochemestry

Immunohistochemistry is used to confirm the presence of or to identify certain structures or substances in tissue sections which cannot be identified with conventional staining methods. Such structures include: cells, enzymes, hormones, macromolecules like nucleic acids and polysaccharides. The basis of immunohistochemical staining techniques is the antigen-antibody reaction. This method makes it possible to differentiate, for example, various cells in a tissue section according to their different metabolic products or surfaces. Either the metabolic product or a certain surface component serves as the antigen. In the first step, the antigen reacts with a specific antibody. The resulting antigen-antibody complex is invisible. Therefore, in a further step a second antibody bound to an adjuvant is added and binds to the initial antibody (so-called sandwich procedure). The bound adjuvant makes the antigen-antibody complex visible under the microscope and identifies the sought structure. Adjuvants are:

Combination with further dyes or staining techniques:

Aus dem Protein GFAP bestehen diejenigen intermediären Filamente, die für Astrozyten typisch sind. Überlege, welche intermediären Filamentproteine in anderen Zellarten, z.B. in Neuronen, vorkommen!

Home
Tutor
Help
Exit
Boxes
Astrocyte
Astrocyte
Neuronal perikaryon

HistoNet2000 - Help

1. Organization of the screen surface

Right side: histologic specimen
Left side: information about the specimen (above) and general program functions (below)

2.Histologic specimen

Pull the mouse across the histologic specimen for training purposes. A small square with exclamation marks (dynamic labels) will appear where there is an important structure. You should then decide what structure this could be. To check your result, simply click the appropriate square, and the correct label will appear. The option “marked” allows you to see all labels for all structures simultaneously. These can be removed by clicking “unmarked”. This reactivates the dynamic labels.

3. Complementary information

Info: general information about the specimen, as well as a list of the dynamic labels
Drawing: schematic drawing of the specimen
Staining: information about the staining method for this specimen
Knowledge: short texts with basic histologic information, presently deactivated

4. General Program Functions

Home: returns you to the “start” page
Tutor: how to contact the HistoNet Team
Help: Instructions for Use appear
Exit: closes down the HistoNet program
Boxes: goes back to the other specimen of a topic
VM: provides virtual microscopy

We hope you will enjoy working with HistoNet2000 and learn a lot from it!

Cose help