Histological and Immunohistological techniques
Mobile necropsy service
Our team of expert technicians and pathologists can meet your research needs and assist you in conducting the postmortem examination and sample collections.
Complete tissue processing
We provide routine GLP-compliant histology for in vivo toxicology pathology studies.
Specifically, we produce hematoxylin and eosin-stained slides with rigorous quality control. In addition, we offer complete slide preparations as well as separate preparation steps, with the capacity to release up to 300 slides per day.
We can perform, according to your needs, all or part of the histological process (cutting-impregnation-inclusion-staining): from fixed tissue to slide, from the tissue to the block, or from the block to the slide.
Macroscopic Trimming Step
Realized according to your requirements and/or the R.I.T.A. standard.
It consists in cutting the previously fixed tissues (formol-AFA-Ethanol…) by identifying the area of interest; the section thus obtained is placed in a cassette of adapted format and bearing the ID of the sample and the study number; these cassettes are identified with the help of an engraver: an automatic device that avoids manual identification errors.
Dehydration-Impregnation step
We have validated and developed impregnation protocols suitable for various types of samples and substrates.
Impregnation is performed using automated, modern, and regularly maintained equipment.
Embedding in paraffin
This stage consists of the preparation of a paraffin block containing the sample.
Embedding is performed according to the intended orientation and section plane, specified in the phase plan.
Histology and staining
Microtomy
This stage enables slices as thin as 3-4µm to be obtained from the tissue block.
The sections are performed with automated or semi-automated microtomes.
The thickness of the section and the distance between each section are defined in the specification document. The section is placed on a glass slide whose identification number matches that of the cassette using an automated engraving technique that ensures traceability.
We can also perform serial sections of an entire block if required by a specific research protocol.
Specificity of “hard” tissues
We are able to perform classical histology slices for samples such as bone tissue, biomaterials, cartilage… requiring prior decalcification.
We can also propose an innovative technique of cutting without decalcification to preserve adjacent tissues (please contact us).
Staining
We perform standard or specific staining, depending on the tissues, your needs and the desired goal.
The staining is performed by automatic machines, thus guaranteeing the reproducibility and homogeneity of the staining.
We routinely perform the following stains:
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- Toluidin Blue
- Luxol Fast Blue
- Alcaline Sirius Red
- Alcian Blue
- Safranin O Fast Green
- Luna
- Herovici
- Hematoxylin-eosin
- Hematoxylin-eosin saffron
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- Fontana Masson
- Periodic Acid Schiff
- May Grunwald Giemsa
- Masson’s Trichrome
- Unna
- Orcein
- Sirius red
- Perl’s
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On specific request, it is possible to develop other kinds of stains adapted to your specific requirements.
An additional layer can be added to the stained section using an automated dry mounting process.
Quality control of the prepared slides:
100% of our slides are checked under the microscope to verify their quality (absence of bubbles-homogeneity of staining- absence of artifacts…) as well as the presence of the tissue area of interest.
Immunohistochemistry
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is commonly used to analyze biomarkers in various types of tissues.
A team of experienced scientists and technicians carefully review each step of your IHC project. We are now equipped with a Discovery Ventana platform that allows us to automate all labeling processes.
