X-Message-Number: 11631
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 05:51:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: differences in acetylcholine preservation

Authors
  Shahed AR.  Werchan PM.  Stavinoha WB.
Institution
  Operational Technologies Corporation, Armstrong Laboratory, Brooks AFB, TX,
  USA.
Title
  Differences in acetylcholine but not
  choline in brain tissue fixed by freeze fixation or microwave heating.
Source
  Methods & Findings in Experimental & Clinical Pharmacology.  18(6):349-51,
  1996 Jul-Aug.
Abstract
  Among the many rapidly metabolized compounds in the brain,
  acetylcholine is one of the most challenging to sample
  effectively due to its rapid synthesis, degradation and sequestration. To
  ascertain problems that invalidate sampling procedures two methods of tissue
  fixation, microwave heat inactivation and freeze fixation, were used for
  obtaining mice and rat brain samples, respectively. The data show that
  acetylcholine levels obtained by microwave fixation were
  much higher than those obtained by freeze fixation. Choline levels were not
  affected by the fixation method used. Microwave fixation results in more
  accurate assessment of acetylcholine levels than the freeze
  fixation method, even though the tissue fixation time was less than 1 s in
  both methods, because tissue integrity is maintained in the microwave
  fixation, but not during freeze fixation.

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