PROCESSING AND IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL STAINING OF RAT NASAL SECTIONS

We describe a simple method of processing rat nasal cavities for histological and immunohistologic examination in which a commercial product, HistoChoice, replaced formalin as the fixative. The nose was sectioned prior to decalcification, and ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid was used as the decalcifying agent. The entire processing period from collection of the specimen to slide preparation was less than 3 work days. Immunohistochemical procedures to measure cell proliferation and cytochrome P450 activity were applied to these specimens using capillary gap technology.