Amino-Silver Staining of Nervous Tissue

Abstract

AssTRAcT.-Silver-on-the-slide staining of mounted paraffin sections of nervous tissue, fixed either in 957' ethyl alcohol or 10% solutions of formalin (plain, formol-saline or neutralized), can be successfully and easily accomplished when an amino acid-silver nitrate solution, with metallic copper added, is used for the impregnating agent. An equal-parts mixture of 0.035 M solution of glycine, dl-methionine, dZ-a-amino-n-bu tyric acid, dl-histidine (free base) or dl-a-alanine (or combinations of these) and 0.02 M solution of AgNO, is adjusted to p H 8.0-8.5 with 0.1 M NaOH. Clean, bright Cu is used in the proportion of one 1.5 x 6.5 cm strip to every 50 ml of silver solution. The technic recommended is: (1) Pour 150-200 ml of the silver-amino acid solution into a 350-400 ml staining dish. (2) Drop 3-4 strips of Cu into the dish and distribute them evenly over the bottom. (3) Place the slides (in a glass carrier) into the solution immediately and allow them to remain at 37°C for 24-48 hr. (4) Complete the procedure as after Protargol impregnation (Bodian, 1936).

Specific Silver Staining of Nerve Fibres

“…Meanwhile many attempts were made to substitute organic compounds such as peptones or other split protein products (PORTER and DAVENPORT, 1951), aminoacids (BROWN and VOGELAAR, 1956), or eggalbumen (PETERS, 1958) for the organic components of the protargol.…”